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. ||||| 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. 
 
 RELATED: 
 
 Protesters vow to stand their ground at Occupy L.A. 
 
 Occupy L.A. protesters set up barriers to block police 
 
 LAPD on tactical alert; Occupy protesters say eviction imminent 
 
 -- 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 ||||| Los Angeles police say more than 200 people were arrested during a raid of the Occupy LA encampment. 
 
 A crowd gathers during the Occupy LA protest in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011. Officers began a raid on the camp early Wednesday, two days after a deadline passed for protesters to clear out.... (Associated Press) 
 
 A Los Angeles police officer carries his helmet and weapon to a bus at the Occupy Los Angeles camp in Los Angeles late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles. Police are preparing to evict protesters... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles police officers fill a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles. The Protesters... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles police officers with wrist restraints sit on a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles police officers sit on a bus late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Lucy... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles police officers Face protesters from the Occupy LA encampment outside City Hall in Los Angeles Wednesday Nov. 30, 2011. Police have moved in on the Occupy Los Angeles encampment and began... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles Police officers gather at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles Police officers wait on a bus at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles police officers stand by a sack containing wrist restraints late Tuesday Nov. 29, 2011 in Los Angeles as they prepare to evict protesters from the Occupy Los Angeles encampment outside City... (Associated Press) 
 
 Los Angeles Police officers wait on a bus at the Elysian Park command post to prepare for the Occupy Los Angeles raid, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Bret Hartman, Pool) (Associated Press) 
 
 Police Chief Charlie Beck said at an early Wednesday news conference that the arrests were mainly peaceful and there were no injuries. 
 
 Beck says an initial search of the camp turned up no drugs or weapons. 
 
 More than 1,000 police officers raided the camp and dismantled what was left of the tent city that stood for two months. 
 
 Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness to arrest or drive out some of the longest-lasting protesters since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country. 
 
 About 50 protesters were arrested in Philadelphia. 
 
 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. 
 
 Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia stormed Occupy Wall Street encampments under darkness Wednesday to arrest or drive out some of the longest-lasting protesters since crackdowns ended similar occupations across the country. 
 
 Dozens of officers in riot gear flooded down the steps of Los Angeles City Hall just after midnight and started dismantling the two-month-old camp two days after a deadline passed for campers to leave the park. Officers in helmets and wielding batons and guns with rubber bullets converged on the park from all directions with military precision and began making arrests after several orders were given to leave. 
 
 The raid in Los Angeles came after demonstrators with the movement in Philadelphia marched through the streets after being evicted from their site. About 40 protesters were arrested after refusing to clear a street several blocks northeast of City Hall, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. They were lined up in cuffs and loaded on to buses by officers. Six others were arrested earlier after remaining on a street police that police tried to clear. 
 
 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa raised public safety and health concerns in announcing plans for the eviction last week, while Philadelphia officials said protesters must clear their site to make room for a $50 million renovation project. 
 
 Defiant Los Angeles campers who were chanting slogans as the officers surrounded the park, booed when an unlawful assembly was declared, paving the way for officers to begin arresting those who didn't leave. 
 
 In the first moments of the raid, officers tore down a tent and tackled a tattooed man with a camera on City Hall steps and wrestled him to the ground. Someone yelled "police brutality." 
 
 Teams of four or five officers moved through the crowd making arrests one at a time, cuffing the hands of protesters with white plastic zip-ties. A circle of protesters sat with arms locked, many looking calm and smiling. 
 
 Opamago Cascini, 29, said the night had been a blast and he was willing to get arrested. 
 
 "It's easy to talk the talk, but you gotta walk the walk," Cascini said. 
 
 At least two dozen people had been arrested in the first two hours and police said they planned to arrest the 75 people remaining in the park. Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said one person was arrested for violence against a police officer, but Smith couldn't provide details. 
 
 Police used a cherry picker to pluck five men from trees. Two others were in a tree house _ one wore a crown and another taunted police with an American flag. 
 
 In Philadelphia, police began pulling down tents at about 1:20 a.m. EST after giving demonstrators three warnings that they would have to leave, which nearly all of the protestors followed. Dozens of demonstrators then began marching through the streets and continued through the night. 
 
 Ramsey said breaking up the camp in the early-morning hours helped minimize any disruption to businesses and traffic. 
 
 "We acknowledge the fact that we are going to have to leave this space .... but in another sense this has been our home for almost two months and no one wants to see their home taken away from them," Philadelphia protestor Bri Barton, 22, said before police began clearing out the camp. 
 
 "Whether or not we have this space or work in the city is nowhere near done," she said. 
 
 The eviction overall appeared to have been carried out without any significant scuffles or violence. 
 
 Demonstrators and city officials in both Los Angeles and Philadelphia were hoping any confrontation would be nonviolent, unlike evictions at similar camps around the country that sometimes involved pepper spray and tear gas. The movement against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed began with Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan two months ago. 
 
 About 1,200 Los Angeles officers staged for hours outside Dodger Stadium before the raid. They were warned that demonstrators might throw everything from concrete and gravel to human feces at them. 
 
 "Please put your face masks down and watch each other's back," a supervisor told them. "Now go to work." 
 
 Before police arrived in large numbers, protesters were upbeat and the mood was almost festive. A protester in a Santa Claus hat danced in the street. A woman showed off the reindeer antlers she had mounted on her gas mask. 
 
 Some were smoking pot, some were carrying gas masks, others wore hoodies and had bandanas around their faces. Some protesters carried lit candles and held signs saying "Defend Occupy LA." 
 
 Fireworks exploded in the sky at one point. Later, as helicopters hovered above, someone blew "The Star Spangled Banner" on a horn. 
 
 As officers first surrounded the camp, hundreds of protesters chanted, "The people united will never be defeated." 
 
 Campers planning to defend the camp and hold their ground barricaded entrances to the park with trash cans. 
 
 The police operation was planned at night because downtown is mostly vacant, with offices closed, fewer pedestrians and less traffic, but a spokesman said it could make officers more vulnerable. 
 
 "It's more difficult for us to see things, to see booby traps," Lt. Andy Neiman, told pool reporters. "Operating in the dark is never an advantage." 
 
 Neiman said the force was prepared to deal with demonstrators holed up in the camp or those who had climbed up trees in the small park. 
 
 Gia Trimble, member of the Occupy LA media team, said a lot of people committed to the cause would stay and risk arrest. 
 
 "This is a monumental night for Los Angeles," Trimble said. "We're going to do what we can to protect the camp." 
 
 In their anticipation of an eviction, the Los Angeles protesters designated medics designated with red crosses taped on clothing. Some protesters had gas masks. 
 
 Organizers at the camp packed up computer and technical equipment from the media tent. 
 
 Two men who constructed an elaborate tree house lashed bamboo sticks together with twine to push away any ladder police might use to evict them. 
 
 Police said they would be able to remove the tree climbers. 
 
 Members of the National Lawyers guild had legal observers on hand for an eviction. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Matheson reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer also contributed to this report. ||||| On the north and west sides of City Hall, police were busy loading arrestees onto buses headed for jail. 
 
 Bomb-sniffing dogs were being led around the building, sniffing for molotov cocktails that police feared protesters would use, but which so far had not materialized. 
 
 
 
 Police discovered several protesters hiding in the trees. "You've got one up here, too?" Officer Norma Eisenmen asked a fellow officer about a demonstrator hiding in the foliage of a tree on Spring Street. 
 
 Occupy L.A.: Photos | Videos | 360° photos | Live webcam 
 
 It appeared that getting him and others back on the ground was going to be the officers' biggest task as the night wore on. 
 
 
 
 The men in the tree were refusing to come down. One wore a crown. Another taunted police with an American flag. 
 
 
 
 "Obama says 'Yes, we can,'" he said. "Well, yes we did!" 
 
 
 
 "We are here to uphold the law, why are you here?" said the other. 
 
 RELATED: 
 
 LAPD traps hundreds of protesters in camp 
 
 Confrontation occurs on Broadway at 1st Street 
 
 Some protesters prepare for tear gas, others leave 
 
 -- Kate Linthicum at Los Angeles City Hall 
 
 Photo: LAPD officers at the Occupy L.A. encampment in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
– 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.