Occupy Philadelphia gets evicted. Here, demonstrator Lauren Foley of Philadelphia is confronted by a police on horseback. "That was so scary," she said later. ( APRIL SAUL / Staff Photographer) 
 
 Originally published Nov. 30, 2011 Police swarmed around City Hall and rousted Occupy Philadelphia protesters from their encampment overnight, more than two days after a deadline passed for them to leave. The occupiers responded by roaming around Center City, scattering and regrouping with police following their every move in a chaotic night of cat-and-mouse that ended before daylight. "The Dilworth occupation is over," Mayor Nutter said at a news conference just before 7 a.m. 
 
 Is Occupy Philly over? Yes, now that they've been rousted from Dilworth, they'll lose their strength No, they'll reform somewhere else and continue their activism View results 
 
 Crews were using bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear up debris and fire hoses to wash down Dilworth Plaza as he spoke. 
 
 He called the police operation to clear the plaza "tremendously well planned and executed." 
 
 Officials said 52 people were arrested, 45 of them in a 5 a.m. face off on North 15th Street behind the Inquirer and School District buildings. all were charged with failure to disperse and obstruction. 
 
 "We followed them around Center City all night long and finally arrested some of them," Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey. 
 
 Nutter said three police officers suffered minor injuries, two while making arrests and one while taking down a tent on the plaza. He said a female protester was hurt when a police horse stomped on her foot. 
 
 The attempt to disperse the occupiers began about 1 a.m. - 56 hours after the city-imposed deadline form them to leave Dilworth Plaza came and went. 
 
 The District Attorneys Office said the first person arrested was Ryan Stroud, 22, who was taken into custody at 1:55 a.m. when he returned the plaza. 
 
 Tensions rose and ebbed throughout the night, beginning when police moved to evacuate the Occupy encampment. Police gave protesters at least three warnings that they had to leave the plaza. 
 
 After the third warning, 15 protesters locked arms and started walking south on 15th Street. 
 
 Thus began a four-hour trek from Dilworth Plaza to Rittenhouse Square and then snaking east of City Hall before turning north on Broad Street, and then left on Spring Garden and left again on 15th Street, where the arrests were made. 
 
 "Get up, get down, there's revolution in this town," the protesters shouted at 17th and Spruce Streets. 
 
 When the march started, police, many of them riding bicycles, were patient as protesters confronted them repeatedly, chanting "This is what a police state looks like" and "Shame, shame." 
 
 At two points, protesters crashed through metal barriers set up by police to prevent them from returning to City Hall, and police simply watched and resumed following the marchers. 
 
 But as the night wore one, tensions mounted. 
 
 Protesters repeatedly accused police of using their bikes to shove people, and at least twice, a protester ended up on the ground. 
 
 When this happened, the marchers began shouting "All eyes! All eyes," ensuring there would be witnesses to what was happening. Many protesters held up video cameras to document the skirmishes. 
 
 In one incident, one police officer scolded another for using his bike to shove a marcher. 
 
 On 15th Street just south of Market Street, protesters and police, including mounted officers, were practically nose to nose as Occupiers accused the force often brutalizing Philadelphians. 
 
 "They pretend they are your friends," one protester shouted, and the group repeated. Some protesters seemed uncomfortable with the accusations against the police. "Stop yelling at the police," one shouted when the brutality accusation came up. "Have a heart." 
 
 At one point, mounted units swept into the crowd, pressing it back and injuring one woman. 
 
 Protesters pressed forward with some shouting from crowd. Some horses appeared spooked, with one running off as the crowd grew rowdy. 
 
 The crowd roamed from street to street, once again crashing through metal barricades. 
 
 Police regrouped and blocked the protesters. 
 
 By 3:45 a.m., police had successfully cleared the area around the south side of 15th street, and blocked it with vehicles. 
 
 Workers tossed the remains of the encampment into garbage trucks and dragged away wooden pallets that had become part of the infrastructure. 
 
 Ramsey had said early on that police wanted to avoid making arrests, but that after four hours of following protesters around Center City that was not to be. 
 
 Addressing the timing of the eviction, he said: "We want to try to minimize any conflict. So it just made sense to do it early in the morning, when the businesses are closed." 
 
 The overnight drama marked the end of the first, and possibly final, phase of Occupy Philadelphia, a movement that spread here from Wall Street as thousands of people across the country pitched tents in public places to protest growing income inequality and a host of other problems. 
 
 Occupy Philly got its start Oct. 6, when about 700 people gathered, playing guitars, a trumpet, and drums and carrying signs such as "HUMAN NEED NOT CORPORATE GREED." 
 
 Mayor Nutter initially embraced the protest, arranged for his staff to meet with the movement's representatives, and even provided electricity for their computers. The group held near-daily press conferences and staged sit-ins at Comcast headquarters to protest corporate tax breaks and at a Center City Wells Fargo Bank branch to denounce home foreclosures. The city maintained a large police presence on Dilworth, assigning a regular contingent from the civil affairs unit. Overtime costs are estimated to have reached $641,000 as of Nov. 23. 
 
 At the nightly general assembly meetings that Occupy held on the plaza and in the nearby American Friends Service Committee, a consensus was reached among the majority, who agreed to move from the encampment when construction began on the $50 million renovation of Dilworth Plaza, a project that has been in the works for several years. 
 
 Unions, which supported the protesters message, had argued that the project would create jobs. 
 
 The plans call for overhauling the SEPTA station underneath Dilworth, improving handicapped access, and creating a green landscape on the plaza with grass and trees as well as a café and a winter ice rink. 
 
 As the weeks went on, scores of homeless people, drawn in part by the regular hot meals that Occupy provided, moved into the encampment. At its peak, city officials estimated there were 230 tents. Over the last few weeks, Nutter began losing patience with the protesters as problems mounted at the site, including public urination, other unsanitary conditions and one reported sexual assault. 
 
 Many protesters claimed the mayor's concerns were overblown. Some, disagreeing with the general assembly consensus, determined to stay after the eviction deadline, saying the money intended for the renovation project would be better spent on housing, particularly for the homeless. 
 
 On Nov. 16, Nutter ordered the protesters to leave immediately so that construction would begin. Most Occupiers stayed. But on Friday, after the mayor gave the protesters a deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday to vacate the plaza, the exodus began. By Monday, only about 75 tents remained. 
 
 Nutter said this morning that since Sunday, outreach workers have helped 49 homeless from the encampment find placements, including 15 this morning. 
 
 "I want to thank the citizens of this great city for their patience," Nutter said. "We have worked hard to respect the free speech rights of those who need to protest while also balancing the needs of our city to continue operating." 
 
 The city issued a permit for Reasonable Solutions, a splinter group, to protest on Thomas Paine Plaza, across the street from Dilworth, but only between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. The permit also limited Reasonable Solutions to erect one tent, as long as it was taken down at the end of each day. As of Tuesday, the group had yet to set up there. 
 
 Earlier Tuesday, some Occupiers said they had heard rumors that the police would come during the night. 
 
 Elisabeth Levinson, 24, said she did not know where she would go if police kicked her off the plaza. The daughter of an addict and an absentee father, Levinson is homeless. Before joining Occupy, Levinson said, she lived in a women's shelter in West Philadelphia until it closed, then stayed with friends who let her sleep on the couch. 
 
 "Half of us don't have homes right now," she said, cradling a stray kitten about the size of a child's palm that she had found on the plaza, and wondering what to feed it. She said she had named him "99," a reference to the "We are the 99 percent" Occupy slogan about the growing income inequality between the top 1 percent of Americans and the rest of the country. 
 
 At least two Occupiers prepared for the expected confrontation night by fortifying their tents. Ahuyiva Harel surrounded his with jagged pieces of lumber arranged in a Tinker Toy-type grid. 
 
 "I'm opposed to public property being in private hands," he said, explaining his opposition to leaving. He was referring to the fact that the Center City District will lease Dilworth from the city for $1 a year for 30 years and operate the plaza. That arrangement was required so that the project would qualify for certain funds. Proceeds from the café will pay for the plaza's maintenance. 
 
 Contact staff writer Miriam Hill at 215-854-5520 or hillmb@phillynews.com. ||||| 1 of 6. The Occupy Los Angeles encampment at City Hall Park is seen before the midnight deadline for eviction from City Hall Park passes in Los Angeles, November 27, 2011. 
 
 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police in riot gear closed in before dawn on Monday on anti-Wall Street activists in Los Angeles who defied a midnight deadline to vacate a camp outside City Hall, but stopped short of clearing the encampment. 
 
 Police managed to reopen blocked streets for morning rush-hour commuters after a tense standoff with protesters who had taken over a downtown intersection, but remnants of a crowd that had swelled to 2,000 overnight remained at City Hall. 
 
 Four demonstrators were arrested during the brief confrontation, accused of being present at an unlawful assembly, before police ultimately pulled back from City Hall park. 
 
 Later, attorneys for Occupy LA asked a federal judge for an injunction barring police from evicting the camp, arguing that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and police chief Charlie Beck had violated their civil rights by ordering it dismantled. 
 
 The Los Angeles encampment, which officials had tolerated for weeks even as other cities moved in to clear out similar camps, is among the largest on the West Coast aligned with a 2-month-old national Occupy Wall Street movement protesting economic inequality and excesses of the U.S. financial system. 
 
 Villaraigosa eventually gave protesters until just after midnight to remove their tents and leave or face a forcible removal, setting the stage for the latest showdown between leaders of a major U.S. city and the Occupy movement. 
 
 But about two hours after the eviction deadline had passed, police commanders said they would permit the Occupy LA encampment to stay until at least daybreak. Police Commander Andrew Smith later said he thought it was "highly unlikely" that the camp would be forced to shut down on Monday. 
 
 Elsewhere in the country, a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline set by Philadelphia officials for Occupy protesters there to move from a similar encampment came and went without incident. 
 
 Dozens of people heeded the order but many tents and other structures stayed put. Police sources said authorities were hoping the rest of the protesters would relocate voluntarily and that no major actions were expected before Tuesday. 
 
 'WHOSE STREET? OUR STREET!' 
 
 Staking its place since October 1 on the grounds surrounding City Hall, the Los Angeles camp had grown to roughly 400 tents and 700 to 800 people, organizers and municipal officials said. At least a third of campers were believed to be homeless. 
 
 By Sunday night the size of the crowd outside City Hall swelled further as supporters from organized labor, clergy, civil rights and other groups streamed into the area, answering a call for an 11th-hour show of support. 
 
 The overall number of protesters, some wearing gas masks, had grown to at least 2,000 by late Sunday, police estimated. 
 
 After keeping out of sight throughout the day on Sunday, police began to make their presence known as the mayor's eviction deadline passed, and the protesters' mood turned from calm and festive to rowdy. 
 
 Demonstrators and police confronted each other overnight but except for some debris thrown by protesters at one point, there was no violence. One skirmish involved an intersection occupied by protesters. 
 
 Minutes after ordering protesters in the street to disperse, dozens of helmeted police carrying night sticks and special shotguns for firing "bean-bag" projectiles enclosed the intersection and forced their way into the crowd. 
 
 Most in the crowd quickly retreated into the park, as onlookers chanted "Whose street? Our Street" at police and shouted at those defying police to "Get off the street!" 
 
 Someone hurled what appeared to be pieces of a bamboo pole and a bottle at police, and Smith said four people were arrested. 
 
 Los Angeles has been relatively accommodating to its Occupy group compared to other major cities, with Villaraigosa at one point providing ponchos to campers when it rained. 
 
 But after the collapse of negotiations aimed at persuading protesters to relocate voluntarily, the mayor said last week the encampment would have to go. 
 
 The mayor complimented the protesters on Sunday for staying peaceful. But he added in a statement: "It is time for Occupy LA to move from focusing their efforts to hold a particular patch of park land to spreading the message of economic justice and restoration of balance to American society." 
 
 He said he hoped to avoid the sporadic violence that erupted in other cities when police used force against Occupy protesters. 
 
 A number of protesters early on Monday credited the police with showing restraint, including Clark Davis, an Occupy LA organizer, who said to Smith and a group of other officers standing by, "You guys have been fantastic." 
 
 (Writing by Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Additional reporting by Lucy Nicholson and Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Editing by Greg McCune and Cynthia Johnston) ||||| Police have been converging on the stadium all evening as they prepare to take down the camp. In recent minutes, Metro buses filled with officers have left, headed downtown. 
 
 The massive deployment comes as police are facing down hundreds of chanting protesters at several intersections near City Hall. The protests have been peaceful and demonstrators were respecting the police lines. 
 
 Columns of officers were seen swarming from several direction around City Hall and began to remove tents. 
 
 Hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department officers have deployed onto downtown streets to clear out the Occupy L.A. camp on the lawn of City Hall. 
 
 Some LAPD officers are already facing down protesters on the streets around City Hall. Deputy Chief Jose Perez, the incident commander for the night's operation, said he had asked lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild -- a group that has served as an informal intermediary between police and protesters -- to fan out among the protesters and tell them they will have "a reasonable amount of time" to leave the park after the dispersal order is given. 
 
 "Those who want to be arrested will be. Those who don't, won't," Perez said in a brief interview. The LAPD has closed off an area from Temple Street on the north to 3rd Street on the south and from Alameda Street on the east to Broadway on the west. 
 
 FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests 
 
 An LAPD helicopter announced the start of the department's action, swooping low and incessantly circling the City Hall steps on which hundreds of protesters had gathered. It flooded the camp with light from its high-powered searchlight and the din from its propellers threatened to drown out a chant of "Occupy L.A., all day, all night!" by the protesters. 
 
 Someone then launched fireworks over the camp. 
 
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 -- Andrew Blankstein, Kate Linthicum and Joel Rubin 
 
 Photo: Los Angeles Police Department officers move in as Occupy L.A. protesters are ordered out of their encampment near City Hall. 
 
 Credit: Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times ||||| Members of Occupy Philadelphia remain on site at City Hall into the evening of Nov. 28. (David M Warren / Staff Photographer) 
 
 About 100 Occupy Philly protesters sat down on the cold concrete of Dilworth Plaza at 5 p.m. Sunday and waited to be rousted for violating a deadline Mayor Nutter had set for the group to leave. 
 
 But the expected police eviction had not happened by late Sunday evening, and city officials continued to avoid saying when, or whether, they would throw the Occupiers and their tents off City Hall's so-called front lawn. 
 
 "We are expecting people to pack up and leave," said Mark McDonald, spokesman for Mayor Nutter. "I'm not going to speculate about what the city might do at any time down the road from now." 
 
 For about 90 minutes, protesters chanted slogans such as, "What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like." 
 
 They served squash soup in paper cups, handed out bottles of water, and railed against what they believe is excessive corporate greed and power. 
 
 All the while, police looked on calmly. 
 
 Police had no plans to evict anyone, Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan said about 6:30 p.m. 
 
 "We look forward to working with Occupy Philadelphia and a resolution of the problem. Confrontation is never good. Anyone who is being fair would have to say that there is a big difference between the police reaction to Occupy Philadelphia than in other cities," he said. 
 
 "I definitely, definitely want to really stress that the vast majority of people participating in this movement have been cooperative, nonviolent, and very respectful," he said. 
 
 Sullivan cautioned, however, that protesters would be prevented from setting up another camp elsewhere in the city unless they got a permit. 
 
 The city has said it needs to erect fencing this week for work at Dilworth Plaza, including renovation of the SEPTA tunnels and the addition of grass, a cafe, stage, and winter ice rink. 
 
 Over the last few days, Occupy Philly participants, many homeless, had begun to take down their tents. By 7:15 p.m. Sunday, roughly a third of what originally was about 300 tents were gone. 
 
 Darrin Annussek, an unemployed career counselor, and William Tuttle, a student, were folding up Annussek's tent Sunday. Someone had stolen Tuttle's tent, and the men, who got married at Occupy Philly last month, said they probably would move to the Occupy site in Washington. 
 
 "I wanted to protest the fact that corporations have too much control and government hasn't done much to stop it," Annussek said. 
 
 He said he believed Nutter had exaggerated the health and safety concerns the mayor cited in explaining why he could not issue protesters a permit for a new location once the $50 million renovation project began. 
 
 "I really thought this would become one of the longer occupations," Annussek said. 
 
 Ellen Rogovinhart of Elkins Park said she thought the city could have done more to help the Occupiers find a new location, possibly in a church. 
 
 "I know the city has work to do," Rogovinhart said. "But I think this is a very important movement." 
 
 She was hoping Philadelphia police would not use force, as police in Oakland and other cities have, to get Occupiers to move. 
 
 Rogovinhart held a sign that read, "The eyes of the world are watching to see if we are the city of brotherly and sisterly love today." 
 
 At times it seemed the whole world were watching. On Sunday night, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, using the screen name @Uncle Rush, went on Twitter to ask Nutter to "remember this is a nonviolent movement - please show restraint tonight." 
 
 Nutter tweeted back that he agreed. 
 
 On the west side of City Hall, several hundred people gathered to observe what would happen to those risking arrest. The crowd used its "human mic" system of amplification, in which others repeat what each person says so all could hear. 
 
 "I went to college. I graduated with honors," Marcel Williams Foster yelled, and the crowd repeated. "I work three part-time jobs with no benefits and I have $50,000 in student loans." 
 
 Lauren Keiser, 26, a student from Audubon, said she was willing to get arrested because she believed homeless people, who are a constant presence on the plaza, deserve more help. She thinks the money that will transform Dilworth could be better spent on housing, addiction programs, and other services.
– More than 1,000 police officers moved in late last night to clear out the Occupy LA encampment on the lawn of City Hall. Police swarmed into the camp from several directions and began dismantling tents as protesters chanted, reports the Los Angeles Times. By early this morning, the site was in shambles, with police dragging out the few remaining protesters by their arms and legs. Some protesters also remained in trees, but police were working to remove them—with the assistance of a cherry picker. The AP reports that more than 200 were arrested; police loaded them onto buses headed to jail. No injuries were reported and the arrests were mainly peaceful. Police also stormed Occupy Philadelphia in the wee hours of the morning, razing the camp and arresting about 50 some 56 hours after the city ordered them to clear out of Dilworth Plaza. Officials in Los Angeles and Philadelphia had hoped to avoid the violent confrontations happening in other cities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that at least three police officers suffered minor injuries in that city’s raid.