The mood Friday at the

encampment was one-third somber, one-third defiant and one-third business as usual as Sunday's deadline for campers to leave two downtown parks ticked closer.

Just before noon, campers were sprucing up the park, rolling up broken or abandoned tents, collecting garbage and recyclables into huge piles and sweeping up leaves and trash.

Organizers planned to have a potluck meal and concert Saturday, some seemingly oblivious to the city’s demand to tear down the forest of tarps and tents that have occupied the park and the city’s collective consciousness for the past five weeks.

Others, like Patrick Johnson, a volunteer who has supported the movement from the beginning, quietly packed up his gear into a rolling suitcase.

Johnson thinks about 25 percent of the campers will stay and defy the city’s efforts to remove them.

He said it’s that 25 percent of the campers that have caused problems in the community, “and they are the ones that are going to get maced and arrested,” he said.

“They believe that this has not been a successful occupation because nobody got shot, there have been no mace cans to the head…they’re ignorant.

This is history. There were some failures in it, but the cool thing is…we got to try.”

Some people have left but many are staying in the camps, both old, and young, including clusters of young men wearing bandanas who appear to be looking for a fight. One young man, who's been living in a huge box, is fortifying the inside with plywood and plans on piling up concrete blocks on the outside. He's not going anywhere. Same with another young man, who admitted he's scared.

Others, including a woman sweeping next to the kitchen area, said folks will leave once police sweep in but then will come back.

"That's what they did in Oakland," she said, giving her name only as Katrina.

She said most of the protesters are peaceful. One young man wrote out a name tag, saying he is a nonviolent protester.

But Jeff Billings, a 57-year-old veteran, said he's worried about young people who are itching for a riot.

"They've never been in one before," he said.

He's moving his tent out Saturday to ensure that it doesn't get damaged but plans to be back to stay past the eviction deadline at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. He said about a 100 veterans have promised to show up at Lownsdale and Chapman squares to defy authorities.

"The purpose of this whole thing is to defy the government," Billings said. "But there won't be enough room for them to arrest us."

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese, who patrolled the park for several hours Friday, said he saw some positive signs that people were leaving.

“We’re encouraging folks to begin the process of packing up and and moving to appropriate shelter if they’re homeless,” said Portland police Chief Mike Reese. “If they're not homeless, moving home. We’re seeing that people are actually packing up and moving out and that’s a very positive sign.”

But even as Reese talked positively about the actions of campers, the police bureau issued a press release with ominous overtones

.

Police said they believe protesters in the Occupy Portland camps are soliciting out-of-state reinforcements, collecting gas masks and may be preparing weapons and shields for a confrontation early Sunday morning when police are expected to evict them from Lownsdale and Chapman squares.

Police spokesman Lt. Robert King said officers took out enough stone and foundation rocks to fill a pickup truck after an Occupy Portland protester tipped off police.

King said one of the Occupy Portland protesters approached him and showed him one of the rocks that some of the campers appeared to be stockpiling.

About 20 officers moved in to remove the rock, which was found at the northwest corner of Chapman Square. Officers also found some plywood.

Shortly after police removed the rocks, a young man sitting on a bench in Lownsdale Square collapsed. People started yelling that he was overdosing and dying. Officers started CPR while the crowd pressed around them, yelling at police and news media.

Police spokesman Lt. Robert King said it was the third overdose in the camps that police know of. It appears the man had taken heroin, King said. He was revived by emergency workers and was breathing as he was taken away on a stretcher.

Police also said campers have dug a hole in one of the parks which has been reinforced with wood and that they have received reports of others hammering nails into wood as possible weapons.

Police believe as many as 300 people from various locations, including Seattle, Oakland and San Francisco, are expected to join those at the parks with as many as 150 anarchists helping resist the eviction.

Many protesters have packed up and left in advance of the Sunday 12:01 a.m. deadline, police said, and they have taken down the camp kitchen.

But Occupy Portland disputed the police press release, saying the movement has not sought to organize a "forceful resistance" to police. The statement criticizes the police for attributing statements or actions by a few to represent the majority of those at the Occupy Portland camps.

"Any one that is engaging in violent resistance is doing so in direct contradiction to the values outlined by the Portland General Assembly, and in doing so is by definition not representing Occupy Portland," the statement said.

Occupy Portland is instead planning marches, a potluck and other events to bring together people "in solidarity with the nonviolent, humanitarian goals of Occupy."

"Whatever the whole group decides, everyone can go with whatever feels right to them, so long as it’s peaceful and nonviolent," said a volunteer facilitator, identified in a release as Adriane.

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Members of the group also have been offering ideas for action to take both before and after the Sunday 12:01 a.m. deadline, the statement says. They are focusing on cleaning up the park for the Saturday potluck, removing valuables and gathering "the largest crowd Occupy Portland has yet seen, united in peace, united in support for the 99% whose interests have not been served by corporatism, by war, and by the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few."

Police said that a Portland Parks and Recreation security manager had posted 36 "No Camping" signs in the park but occupiers took down some of them. Officers have also been handing out information on shelters and other resources to campers.

"We are committed to it remaining peaceful but very concerned about information that people are massing for and preparing for a confrontation with police," the press release said.

Occupy Portland protesters have camped in Chapman and Lownsdale parks in downtown Portland since Oct. 6. Mayor Sam Adams announced Thursday that the protesters need to leave the camps by Sunday at 12:01 a.m. due to ongoing safety and sanitation concerns.

So who will stay and who will go before the deadline?

“It depends on what you’re here for,” said Imre Ilyes, who has emerged as one of the more thoughtful organizers of the movement. “For a lot of us we feel like this is an important moment and we need to step up and show what we and the movement are all about. For some people this was just a refuge and it won’t be that way Saturday, so those people are leaving.”

Those who do stay in defiance of the order, Chief Reese said, will ask to be arrested. The police, he said, will oblige.

“We’ve talked to a few people who said they want to be arrested. If that’s the case, we’re telling them to take a seat, tell the officer they want to be arrested and we will process them in the nicest possible manner. We understand that when people want to practice civil disobedience and be arrested, we can facilitate that.”

Helen Jung, Alison Barnwell and Lynne Terry of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report

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