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Loveland police on Monday arrested 13 of about 50 protesters during a blockade of the entrance to the Walmart Distribution Center on Crossroads Boulevard, a political statement against “corporate greed.”

During a foray northward from their Denver Civic Center Park base, members of the Occupy Denver movement were joined by local political activists in staging a daylong protest targeting the company they say epitomizes economic oppression.

“This whole movement is about fighting corporate greed,” said Dakota Payton, a native Lovelander who now lives in Littleton and had stood with the movement during their Civic Center occupation.

“Walmart is one of the biggest components of that, and they pay lots of lobbyists a lot of money to make sure things go their way. We want to make this a public agenda instead of a hidden one.”

Demonstrators began arriving at the entrance to the center, a million-square-foot warehouse from which trucks deliver to Walmart stores regionwide, at about 9:30 a.m.

Among the first were the locals, who learned of the Occupy movement’s Loveland plans from press reports over the weekend.

“I’m out here for fairness for all people of this country,” said Loveland resident Carla Massaro. “Corporations are not people. I have a sign on my car that says, ‘I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.'”

‘Hey-hey! Ho-ho!’

For three hours, the protest was a mild one, punctuated by waving signs and an occasional bullhorn prompt for the small crowd to chant, “Hey-hey! Ho-ho! Corporate greed has got to go!”

Meanwhile, big Walmart-branded semi-trailer trucks streamed to and from the center while the protesters kept their polite distance at curbside.

In the end, the bait was irresistible.

“We’re going to shut it down,” said a protester who identified himself as “Munchie” Abignal Jr., a member of the Occupy Oakland movement who had traveled to Colorado.

“About noon, the plan is to get into the intersection and stop them.”

At 12:45 p.m. a group of about 15 protesters, some of them dragging lightweight tents that have become the Occupy movement’s symbols, flooded the intersection of Crossroads Boulevard and Ward Avenue as a truck was about to exit the warehouse center.

Seven of them sat cross-legged on the pavement inches from the front bumper of the idling truck, linking arms and chanting.

They were greeted there by an odd police combination: A nine-member posse on horseback, wearing cowboy hats, and a like-sized contingent of riot-geared SWAT troops.

Minor charges

One by one, the passive protesters were lifted off the roadway and dragged toward police vehicles. One man fought with police and was arrested for resisting arrest, the most serious charge lodged during the day.

Another, a woman who had apparently decided to avoid arrest, stood and tried to make her way into the dense crowd of onlookers. Police quickly pursued and subdued her.

Police shut down traffic on Crossroads in both directions for about a half-hour while they quelled the disturbance.

“Most of the folks were very cooperative,” Loveland Police spokesman Jeff Fisher said. “We were pleased with the outcome today.”

Of those arrested, just two were taken to the Larimer County Detention center for booking. The remainder were taken a short distance to the Larimer County Fairgrounds where police had opened a temporary booking center.

A Longmont man who was arrested and taken there said he had only tried to cross the street.

‘Very Polite’

“They said I was obstructing traffic,” said Dale Lanan, who said he was recovering from a recent heart surgery. Behind him, a crowd kept up the chant, “Loveland Police are the army of the rich!”

“They were very polite,” Lanan said of the police. “They were very nice to me.”

Fisher said most of the arrests were for obstructing traffic and trespassing by crossing a spray-painted orange stripe that marked the Walmart property line.

The numbers of protesters and police seemed evenly matched, with Loveland Police joined by Larimer County Sheriff’s deputies and police from Windsor, the town that has jurisdiction over the north side of Crossroads Boulevard at the Walmart Center.

By the time the Occupy group folded their tents at mid-afternoon, their numbers had diminished and the tension waned. By 4 p.m., Loveland police had mostly vacated the Crossroads vicinity.

Tom Hacker can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 521, or thacker@reporter-herald.com.