Occupy Portland protesters clear out after standoff
A woman drinks and dances at the Occupy Portland movement, November 13, 2011 in Portland, Oregon. In spite of an eviction notice for early Sunday morning, Portland police delayed closing two downtown parks early today as thousands of people converged to support the Occupy Portland movement.
Occupy Portland protesters faced arrest Sunday, with a few hundred of the demonstrators defying an order to leave a downtown park.
According to the Associated Press, police using loudspeakers warned that anyone who resisted vacating the park risked arrest. In response, demonstrators chanted: "We are a peaceful protest."
Portland Mayor Sam Adams had ordered the camp shut down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. The crowd at the park swelled in the leadup to the deadline, with an estimated 2,000 people marching, dancing and listening to music.
But by dawn the crowd had thinned, and only a few hundred protesters remained, the AP reported, describing the camp as "a shadow of what it was before Saturday."
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According to Reuters, on Sunday morning fewer than a dozen tents remained at the two downtown parks that have been the center of the Occupy Portland protests. Most demonstrators had taken down their tents and removed their belongings.
City officials said they planned to put up fences around the two parks to close them to protesters, Reuters reported.
On Sunday CNN reported arrests at other Occupy protests in the United States, including 19 protesters arrested in Salt Lake City when police cleared their camp, and 17 arrests in Denver.
Protests in Portland were in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, with demonstrators saying they are angered by “corporate greed,” unemployment, income inequality and other societal issues.