Breaking: NYC, Zuccotti Park owners order protesters to leave until park has been cleaned
Police cleared New York’s Zuccotti Park early Tuesday so that sanitation crews could clean the site Occupy Wall Street protesters have inhabited for two months, while in Berkeley, Calif., activists planned another attempt at setting up a new camp.
Concerns about health and safety issues at Occupy Wall Street camps around the country have intensified, and protesters have been ordered to take down their shelters, adhere to curfews and relocate so that parks can be cleaned.
At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, New York City police handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, owner of Zuccotti Park, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return in several hours, but without sleeping bags, tarps or tents.
Minutes later, the mayor’s office tweeted that the protesters should “temporarily leave.”
Police in riot gear filled the streets, car lights flashing and sirens blaring. Protesters, some of whom shouted angrily at police, began marching to two locations in Lower Manhattan where they planned to hold rallies.
Paul Brown, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said arrests had been made.
Some protesters refused to leave the park, but many left peacefully.