As the standoff continued, a few of the protesters on the roof jumped down, but others sat tight for hours, according to witnesses and the Twitter stream of @Occupy_DC. By the end of the evening, 31 people had been arrested, according to a spokesman for the United States Park Police: 15 for crossing a police line and 16 for disobeying a lawful order after the structure was declared unsafe, the spokesman said. Of those, one was charged with indecent exposure, among other things, for urinating while atop the structure.

One of the protesters landed with a flamboyant somersault on the inflated mattress. He was arrested as onlookers cheered as if he were a gymnast who had just stuck a landing. A few more protesters were then removed one at a time in the cherry picker basket. With the removal of the last protester, the occupation of the structure came to an end around 8:30 p.m. Within an hour of the last arrest, the structure was being hauled away in pieces. The police did hand back to the protesters a flag that they had flown from the peak of the roof.

United States Park Police officers in helmets and on horseback had surrounded the two-story structure in McPherson Square throughout the afternoon, pushing back protesters and using yellow tape to cordon off the area. The rest of the occupation camp was not disturbed.

One protester, standing on a park bench on a chilly but sunny afternoon to watch while holding a handwritten sign that said “People not profits,” said the police had pulled several people out of the half-built structure and arrested them. A Park Police spokesman did not return a phone call or e-mail.