Occupy L.A. defies vacate order peacefully

An Occupy Los Angeles protester perched in tree house in between plam trees occupies the front lawn of Los Angeles City Hall after the midnight deadline expiration set by city officials to shut down the encampment on November 27, 2011. / Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES - Wall Street protesters in Los Angeles defied the mayor's early Monday deadline to vacate their encampment near City Hall, with about 1,000 flooding into the area as hundreds of tents remained standing as they have for nearly two months.

A celebratory atmosphere filled the night with protesters milling about the park and streets by City Hall in seeming good spirits. A group on bicycles circled the block, one of them in a cow suit. Organizers led chants with a bull horn.

"The best way to keep a non-violent movement non-violent is to throw a party, and keep it festive and atmospheric," said Brian Masterson.

Police presence was slight right after the 12:01 a.m. PST Monday deadline, but it began increasing as the morning wore on. At the same time, the number of protesters dwindled.

Occupy eviction deadlines pass quietly
Mayor: Occupy LA must leave camp Monday
Occupy movement does Thanksgiving nationwide

"People have been pretty cooperative tonight. We want to keep it peaceful," police Cmdr. Andrew Smith told The Associated Press.

Authorities blocked off streets leading to City Hall but had not swept through the encampment in the early hours of Monday morning. Police have insisted they plan to clear the streets before the morning rush hour.

"We're going to do this as gently as we possibly can. Our goal is not to have anybody arrested. Our goal is not to have to use force," Smith said.

By 2:30 a.m., most protesters had moved from the camp site in the park to the streets. That put them technically in compliance with the mayor's eviction order, but could lead to confrontation with police if they try to clear the streets.

There have so far been no arrests or reports of violence.

62 Photos

Occupy protests: Month 3

"We're still here, it's after 12, ain't nobody throwing anything at the cops, they haven't come in and broken anyone's noses yet, so it's a beautiful thing," said Adam Rice, a protester standing across the street from police in riot gear.

The Los Angeles showdown follows police actions in other cities — sometimes involving the use of pepper spray and tear gas — that resulted in the removal of long-situated demonstration sites. Some of those encampments had been in use almost since the movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan two months ago.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said earlier that the park grounds would be closed after the deadline, while Police Chief Charlie Beck promised that arrests would eventually be made if protesters did not comply.

But in a statement issued shortly before midnight, the mayor said police "will allow campers ample time to remove their belongings peacefully and without disruption."

As the deadline approached, people poured into the grounds, likely many of them answering calls on Facebook and Twitter to come out and show solidarity.

Well after midnight, some protesters began marching into the streets, and several crossed the street to police headquarters.

"Me and my friends, we are not leaving no matter what," said Brian Guzman, who stood on the street corner holding a "Power to the People" sign. "Not until we get some changes."

Masterson said he had turned his own tent into a "non-violent booby trap" by filling it with sandbags to make it tough to tear down.

"We can't beat the LAPD, but we can make it difficult for them to do their job, and have fun while we're doing it," Masterson said.

Elsewhere, a deadline set by the city for Occupy Philadelphia to leave the site where it has camped for nearly two months passed Sunday without any arrests.

The scene outside Philadelphia's City Hall was quiet most of Sunday and by early Monday the numbers of protesters — and police officers — had decreased.

Philadelphia's protesters have managed to avoid aggressive confrontations so far. By early Monday there was still hope the City of Brotherly Love would continue to be largely violence-free.

But eight people were arrested in Maine Sunday after protesters in the Occupy Augusta encampment in Capitol Park took down their tents and packed their camping gear after being told to get a permit or move their shelters.

In Los Angeles, some campers packed up their tents and belongings to avoid police trouble, but said they intended to return without them in support of their fellow protesters.

Scott Shuster was one of those breaking down his camp, but he said it was only to protect his property and he planned to remain.

"I just don't want to lose my tent," he said.

Others moved their tents to the sidewalk so they were technically out of the park.

Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer himself, has said he sympathizes with the movement but that he felt it was time it moved beyond holding on to "a particular patch of park." He said public health and safety could not be sustained for a long period.

Chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday that he expected to make arrests at some point.

"I have no illusions that everybody is going to leave," Beck said. "We anticipate that we will have to make arrests."

[fschwacke]

The Boston Tea Party Revisited
They come from many different backgrounds. About one-third of them are skilled craftsmen, and a much smaller number are professionals, doctors, educators, lawyers, merchants, and the like. Although we do not know the occupations of all the participants, the majority are students and from the working class. About two-thirds are under 20; few are over 40. Most are locals, but some came from great distances. They have one thing in common, their committed opposition to a government which ignores the needs of the people in favor of the rich and powerful. Regardless of their financial or social origins, they work as a team of self-sacrificing patriots against an oppressive and seemingly all powerful enemy. Although the words were yet to be written, they stood for "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish any Form of Government that becomes destructive of inalienable rights of men such as Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness".
This describes the majority of both the Occupy movement and the modern Tea Party, but in fact, it paraphrases the words of the Boston Tea Party Association's description of the participants in one of America's proudest moments.
Like the rank and file members of the Tea Party, the "Occupiers" have the same central agenda; fairness, equity and opportunity. They don't have a Robin Hood complex and do not want to steal from the rich, they just want the crimes of the powerful punished and their plunder returned to those they stole from; this is not theft, it is justice. They want the opportunities enjoyed by their parents and grandparents. Their common goal is the return to a world where there was a vibrant and growing middle class where anyone who was willing to do the hard yards could improve their lot, and that of their families; they are not seeking a redistribution of wealth through conscription. Neither ascribes to the mean spirited rhetoric of those at their extremes. Nor would they knowingly yield to what appears to be the divide and conquer tactics of those amorphous individuals at the highest levels of power.
In the end, these modern American patriots are following in the footsteps of our forefathers; those which led to the creation of our democracy, and they are doing it in ways that would have made them beam with pride. If they can set aside the voices of their most radical leaders while sharply focusing on their commonalities & band together to bring their core values to reality, all Americans triumph. If they don't, they will simply cancel each other out while the bad guys win once more.

[onemanvolt]

The cities chose to waste money on extra police to intimidate protesters.

[alphaomeg]

The Occupy Movement has saved us Hundreds of Millions of dollars this year alone.

Bank of America, Chase and the other mega banks have millions of customers each. They were going to charge us a new Credit Card Fee of 5 dollars a month. That would have ended up taking millions of dollars each month out of our pockets and putting into the Banks deep pockets.

How come CBS doesn't do a main story on this issue and how The Occupy Movement stopped the Greed Charge by asking people to remove their money from the Corporate Banks and put it into the Credit Unions.

Instead CBS shows a map of the major cities and tallys the costs that the Occupy Movement has caused. This of course is their covert way of telling us that they don't like this movement.

I never saw any of the Main Stream Corporate News Media do any Detailed account of the Hundreds of people who lowered the Value of my Home by 50% and ruined our economy.

Love to see some follow up from them on the Wall Street Sharks names and the Corporate Bankers names who were in on all of that.

Sure, We got out little Bernie Madoff scapegoat story and blamed it all on him. But what about some real reporting?

Stop your covert reporting on the Occupy Movement. Funny you never told us about the Radio active Urine in Tokyo Children 2 weeks after the explosions at the plant. I had to go to the Tokyo web pages to find out about that. But not a word in my US Mainstream Media News.

[onemanvolt]

Corporations and some of the media are all a part of the Republican good-ole-boy club. OWS is a threat to the stranglehold they have on our economy and they don't like it.

[involved_indi]

delusional...