OAKLAND, Calif. — Police in riot gear cleared anti-Wall Street protesters from the front of Oakland’s City Hall on Tuesday morning, leaving a sea of overturned tents, protest signs and trash strewn across the plaza.
Hundreds of officers and sheriff’s deputies from more than a dozen agencies went into the 2-week-old encampment with tear gas and beanbag rounds at around 5 a.m., police said. Authorities arrested 85 people, citing misdemeanor unlawful assembly and illegal camping.
Television news footage showed protesters being taken away in plastic handcuffs without incident, though some protesters complained of rough handling by police.
Officers fired tear gas and beanbags when one group of demonstrators pelted officers with rocks and bottles near the camp’s kitchen area, interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said.
“It was definitely chaos. People didn’t want to get gassed,” said protester Anthony Owens, 40, a computer programmer from Oakland who was at the scene when police moved in but was not arrested.
Some people in the camp left as word spread about possible police action, Owens said. Many of the remaining protesters locked arms and shouted as officers surrounded the plaza and moved in.
Later Tuesday, hundreds of protesters gathered at a library and marched through downtown Oakland. They were met by police officers in riot gear, and several small skirmishes broke out.
The protesters eventually went way back to City Hall as dusk approached.
“It’s really, really tense and I think the cops are trying to walk a fine line, but I don’t think they are going to back down and neither are the demonstrators,” said Cat Brooks, an organizer. “We’re on the move. For now.”
No one was injured during the Tuesday morning raid, Jordan said. The plaza was “contained” at around 5:30 a.m., city officials said.
“I’m very pleased with the way things went,” Jordan said at a news conference after the raid.
By midmorning, city workers had started collecting the debris. Some of it would be held for protesters to reclaim, the rest would be thrown away, the city said.
The Oakland site was among numerous camps that have sprung up around the country as protesters rally against what they see as corporate greed and a wide range of other economic problems. The protests have attracted a variety of people, including college students looking for work and the homeless.
In Oakland, tensions between the city and protesters escalated last week as officials complained about what they described as deteriorating safety, sanitation and health matters at the site.
City officials had originally been supportive of protesters, with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan saying that sometimes “democracy is messy.”
But the city later warned the protesters that they were breaking the law and couldn’t stay in the encampment overnight. They cited concerns about rats, fire hazards, public urination and acts of violence at the site, which had grown to more than 150 tents and included areas for health care, child care and cooking.
“Many Oaklanders support the goals of the national Occupy Wall Street movement,” Quan said in a statement Tuesday. “However, over the last week it was apparent that neither the demonstrators nor the City could maintain safe or sanitary conditions or control the ongoing vandalism.”
There were reports of a sexual assault and a severe beating, and firefighters and paramedics were denied access to the camp, according to city officials, who said they had also received numerous complaints of intimidating and threatening behavior.
Protesters disputed the city’s claims about conditions at the camp, saying the protest was dominated by a spirit of cooperation that kept the site clean and led to peaceful resolution of disputes.
Lauren Richardson, a 24-year-old college student from Oakland, complained that the disheveled state of the camp after the police raid gave a false impression. Volunteers collected garbage and recycling every six hours, water for washing dishes was boiled first and rats had infested the park long before the camp went up, she said. “It was very neat. It was very organized,” Richardson said.
Volunteers at the camp’s medical tent said paramedics had not been kept away.
On Thursday, the city officials ordered the protesters to vacate, though they did not set a deadline. Protesters said the number of people at the camp had steadily dwindled since the city posted the letter, while those who remained understood they would likely face a confrontation with police.
After Tuesday’s raid, police maintained a heavy presence around downtown Oakland. Police closed some streets with barricades, and at least two helicopters hovered, shining lights on the area. Dozens of officers were on the streets, and police in riot gear faced off with shouting protesters, who briefly blocked traffic on a busy thoroughfare.
City officials advised downtown businesses to delay opening and city employees to arrive late.
Police also cleared a smaller encampment from a park near the plaza Tuesday morning.
Protesters would be allowed to return to the plaza after it was cleaned up and could stay between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. but not overnight, the city said.
In Sacramento on Monday, District Attorney Jan Scully said she would not file charges against more than 70 protesters arrested while occupying the city’s Cesar E. Chavez Plaza.
But The Sacramento Bee reports that city officials said they would still seek to prosecute the protesters for violating a city ordinance against loitering after curfew. Those cases would be handled by the city attorney’s office rather than the district attorney.
Information for this article was contributed by Terry Collins of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/26/2011