Anti-Wall Street movement feels the heat as tents are dismantled and arrests made in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Cities are cracking down on encampments of the movement protesting against economic inequality [Reuters]

The overnight police raids in Los Angeles and Philadelphia that dismantled two of the nation’s biggest Occupy Wall Street camps have left just a few major “occupations” still going on around the US.

Police in riot gear and bio-hazard suits removed anti-Wall Street activists from their camp at Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday, arresting nearly 300 people and fencing off the area.

The Los Angeles camp, which officials had allowed to remain even as other cities moved in to clear out similar compounds, had been among the largest on the West Coast aligned with a two-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement against economic inequality and excesses of the US financial system.

On the East Coast, about 100 Occupy protesters in Philadelphia swiftly and peacefully vacated their encampment overnight, but police later arrested 52 around the city on charges ranging from obstructing a highway to assaulting a police officer, officials said.

In Los Angeles, police officers brought in on buses surrounded the Occupy LA camp after midnight and declared protesters on the lawn, pavements and streets around City Hall to be an unlawful assembly, ordering them to disperse or face arrest in line with an eviction order from the mayor.

In New York, protesters have continued to meet in Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy movement began, even though police cleared out their tents on November 15.

They planned to protest outside a fund-raising dinner by President Barack Obama on Wednesday and a conference of aerospace executives on Thursday that they branded a meeting of “war profiteers”.

Sanitation problems

Antonio Villaraigos, the Los Angeles mayor, had originally welcomed the protesters, even supplying them with ponchos for rainy weather. But as city officials complained of crime, sanitation problems and property damage, he decided the group had to go.

Villaraigosa initially set an eviction deadline for 12:01am on Monday, but city officials held off on enforcing it for 48 hours in the hope protesters who had swelled to 2,000 at a recent peak would drift away on their own.

The strategy appeared to pay off, with police avoiding the use of tear gas or pepper spray that marked evictions of protesters in Oakland and other cities.

Aside from minor initial scuffles, the crowd was boisterous but mostly peaceful and the bulk of the operation was done before dawn.

“I couldn’t be prouder of what I believe is maybe the finest moment in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department,” Villaraigosa said.

He said there were no major injuries to police or protesters.

Police swept into the park overnight as the raid began in earnest, arresting anyone who refused to leave and dismantling the camp.

Tents were pulled down and flattened after police peeked inside each one with a flashlight.

Some protesters took refuge in tree houses but were ultimately removed by officers using platform lifts and evicted from the camp, which had been estimated to have 500 tents and 700 to 800 full-time residents,

Once the park was cleared of stragglers, workers erected fences and said they would rehabilitate debris-strewn grounds whose landscaping was ravaged by campers. They later collected 30 tonnes of waste from the site, the city said.

Los Angeles Police Sergeant Mitzi Fierro said 292 people were arrested, all but two of those for failure to disperse.

One person was arrested for interfering with police and another accused of battery on an officer. Protesters said the raid would not be the last word.

Philadelphia confrontations

In Philadelphia, demonstrators left their camp in a plaza outside City Hall without incident shortly after 1am local time, but confrontations erupted a short time later at four different locations and resulted in arrests.

Philadelphia police said 52 people were arrested on various charges including obstructing a highway, conspiracy and failure to disperse at a busy intersection.

One person was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer.

In San Francisco, protesters who hold one of the largest remaining Occupy camps on the West Coast essentially rejected an offer to trade their compound for a new site even as officials said time was short for a deal.

The rejection late on Tuesday appeared to harden lines between the city and protesters, with a city negotiator saying officials wanted tents gone from the current site by noon on Thursday but stopping short of issuing an ultimatum.

The Occupy movement is beginning to follow a familiar pattern, according to Todd Gitlin, a sociologist at Columbia University and an authority on social movements.

He noted that the 1960s anti-war movement grew gradually for years until bursting onto the world stage during the election year of 1968.

He predicted big rallies around the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.