Police in riot gear and biohazard suits removed anti-Wall Street activists from an encampment outside the Los Angeles City Hall today, arresting over 200 people as they enforced the mayor's eviction order.
Busloads of police closed in on the 8 week-old camp after midnight local time and declared the hundreds of protesters from the streets around City Hall to be an "unlawful assembly," ordering them to disperse or face arrest.
The Los Angeles encampment, which officials had tolerated as other cities moved in to clear out similar compounds, was among the largest on the West Coast aligned with the 2-month-old national Occupy Wall Street movement against economic inequality and excesses of the US financial system.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had originally welcomed the protesters, even supplying them with ponchos for inclement weather. But as city officials complained of crime, sanitation problems and property damage they blamed on the camp, the mayor decided the group had to go.
He initially set an eviction deadline for one minute after midnight on Monday, but city officials held off on enforcing it for 48 hours in the hope that protesters would drift away from the camp on their own accord.
Los Angeles police say more than 200 people were arrested during the raid.
Police chief Charlie Beck told a news conference the arrests were mainly peaceful and there were no injuries.
He said an initial search of the camp turned up no drugs or weapons.
More than 1,000 police officers raided the camp and dismantled what was left of the tent city that stood for two months.
Meanwhile, police in Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampment under darkness to arrest or drive out some of the longest-lasting protesters since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country. Some 50 protesters were arrested that operation.
Agencies