Members of the Occupy Houston movement were arrested at Tranquility Park in downtown Houston late Tuesday night, the group said.

More than a dozen police officers came into the park about 11 p.m. and took several people into custody, said Mary Belcik, a group member.

Occupy Houston members said about 10 people were detained, with six or seven ultimately arrested.

Belcik said police told the group it was violating a City of Houston ordinance against structures in public parks.

Victor Senties, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department, said eight people were arrested, including six for putting up a structure in a city park and two for failure to comply with lawful orders. Senties said three other people were detained for jaywalking. They were issued tickets and released.

Most of those arrested have been released, their attorney said later Wednesday.

The group had placed a tarp above solar batteries for their computers to protect the equipment from rain, said Belcik. The tarp apparently violated the ordinance and the officers removed it.

Belcik, of Katy, said the officers came to the park and told the group they planned to take away the tarp. The group removed the batteries, replacing them with trash cans. When the officers took down the tarp they confiscated the cans, Belcik said.

Senties said when officers arrived they warned the protesters to take down the structure, but they refused. As officers were handling those arrests, two other protesters approached them and refused to back away when officers instructed them to do so. They were then arrested.

Several people across the street from the park noticed the police activities and ran across the street to the protesters' gathering, Senties said. They were ticketed for jaywalking.

During the altercation, the crowd taunted the officers, chanting "Shame!" and "Show me what democracy looks like," a video posted to the group's YouTube channel shows.

"My government has failed me. It slowly takes away my rights with promises of the greater good," Shaun Crump, an Iraq veteran among the arrested protesters, said in a prepared speech on the Occupy Houston website.

The people arrested were handcuffed and placed in squad cars, she added. The officers carried some of the people arrested away from the park.

Last month, eight protesters were arrested for staging a sit-in at the Mickey Leland Federal Building downtown.

About 46 group members were at the park early Wednesday morning. Some slept under blankets on the ground. A handful of others sat at tables beneath trees working on their computers and talking. They said the arrests would not deter them and they would remain at the park to bring attention to their cause.

"I'm out here for change," 21-year-old Belcik said.

"We're still going to be here for years because that's probably what it'll take," said Houstonian Mike Gleason.

dale.lezon@chron.com

The Chronicle's Kate Shellnutt contributed to this report.