NEW YORK, (Reuters) – New York police evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters from a park in the city’s financial district early today, two months after they set up camp and sparked a national movement against economic inequality.
Wearing helmets and carrying shields and batons, hundreds of police dismantled the sea of tents, tarps and protests signs at Zuccotti Park, arresting 147 people, including about a dozen who had chained themselves to each other and to trees.
As confused and angry protesters tried to work out how to regroup, sanitation workers labored through the night to clear away mounds of trash from the privately owned, publicly accessible park, where hundreds of people had camped, then swept and mopped the granite space.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the park owners, commercial real estate corporation Brookfield Office Properties, had decided that the protesters had become a health and fire safety hazard to themselves and the local community.
“Protesters have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags. Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments,” Bloomberg said in a statement, adding that the situation had become “intolerable.”
Parts of the park had developed a stench of urine and excrement, flower beds had been trampled, and authorities and protesters said there had been reports of sexual assaults, thefts and drug dealing.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, which began when protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17, inspired solidarity rallies and so-called occupations in public spaces across the United States and in cities elsewhere in the world.
In London, city authorities said today they were resuming legal action to try to shift anti-capitalism protesters who have set up camp at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The New York eviction followed similar action in Atlanta, Portland and Salt Lake City, but unlike action in Oakland, California — where police used tear gas and stun grenades — New York police said most protesters left peacefully.
MOVEMENT BIGGER THAN PARK
The cleaning of the park came ahead of plans by protesters to try and shut down Wall Street on Thursday — home to the New York Stock Exchange — by holding a street carnival to mark the two-month anniversary of their campaign.
Several hundred evicted protesters regrouped at a nearby square and proceeded at mid-morning Tuesday to march through lower Manhattan streets before rallying in another park.
“Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) was a metaphor and this is way bigger than that,” said Kyle Depew, 26, a waiter from Williamsburg. “The seed’s been planted in everyone’s mind and that’s what this is about.”
The New York park had been due to reopen on Tuesday morning and the protesters were to be allowed to return as long as they stuck to new park rules — designed to prevent them from setting up a camp again — that included a ban on sleeping bags, tents and the storage of belongings in the space.
But court documents obtained by Reuters showed that New York State Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings issued a temporary restraining order on the new park rules early on Tuesday, and until a hearing was held later in the day, authorities were not allowed to evict protesters from the park and could not enforce the rules.
