For weeks leading up to the eviction of Occupy Portland campers, Portland Assistant Chief Larry O'Dea checked in with chiefs from other cities for tips on what worked and what didn't when clearing out their Occupy encampments.

But in the end, O'Dea drew from a tactic Portland police have used for years when trying to empty the Rose Festival's Fun Center each night.

"We call it a non-confrontational 'soft close,' and we applied it to this," O'Dea said, of the Occupy Portland eviction.

The Fun Center's "soft close" had the same elements: messaging people ahead of time when the park would close; officers doing walk-throughs to warn people of the closure; police telling people they must leave or face citations, followed by selective arrests.

Despite the mayor announcing a 12:01 a.m. deadline for Occupy Portland campers to leave the two downtown squares, Portland police never intended to move in then.

"The results of that would have been very predictable: a major confrontation," O'Dea said.

Instead, officers on the street were instructed to keep people safe and maintain traffic flow as the eviction deadline passed early Sunday, and as thousands of supporters gathered at the two parks and bystanders huddled across the streets. They also reminded officers that the majority of demonstrators were not anti-police, in contrast to some past protests.

There was one tense moment when a man in the crowd threw a projectile at police, causing a gash to Officer Curtis Brown's leg, and four mounted patrol horses attempted to push back protesters at Southwest Main and Third Avenue. Another officer felt something strike his helmet, which turned out to be an open pocket knife, but he was not injured. Flanks of police in riot gear, outnumbered, quickly retreated as demonstrators marched south toward them on Southwest Third.

O'Dea decided officers should back off. "It didn't make sense to use an amount of force just to keep the street open," he said.

And, when it looked like some campers were putting up road barricades on Main Street, O'Dea asked some Occupy Portland representatives to have their people remove them, instead of heating things up by sending police in to do so.

When the celebratory Occupy Portland party wound down around 7 a.m, O'Dea and Chief Mike Reese went home. But when O'Dea turned incident command over to Central Capt. George Burke at 7 a.m., he gave him clear direction: If he saw an opportunity to move in and reclaim the parks with as little resistance as possible, do so. If not, police were willing to wait days.

Burke kept watch outside. Before 9 a.m., he thought police could act and called the chief at home. "Based on the numbers I saw in the park, it appeared as though we could put a quick mission together and secure it with little resistance," Burke said.

Occupy Portland: Police Clear Parks 96 Gallery: Occupy Portland: Police Clear Parks

They talked a couple of times by phone, and then Reese returned downtown. Just after 9 a.m., officers moved in as some weary-eyed campers remained, first picking up tents and tarps before three hours later confronting a group of campers in the northwest corner of Chapman, the most reluctant to leave.

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Shortly after noon, several campers at that corner faced squads of about 30 to 40 officers in riot gear. Officers advanced on the crowd, shoving campers and at times using batons to jab and hit protesters who did not comply. Fifty-one arrests were made. (Reese helped grab the arm of a man arrested early Sunday at SW Main and Third Avenue, before stepping back and letting two officers take over. "He's a working chief,'' the mayor noted.) One man was hospitalized overnight for his injuries.

Police used no tear gas or projectiles to quell the crowd and only used pepper spray to break up a fight among two Occupy protesters. In fact, officers were told they'd need O'Dea's nod before firing tear gas or impact munitions. One man suffered injuries and was taken to a hospital and released.

The mayor and Reese praised officers for acting with restraint. Police officers had "an incredibly difficult situation that took an amazing amount of patience and long hours to get the job done," Mayor Sam Adams said Monday. "And it paid off."

Now, the city must figure out how to cover the extraordinary police overtime, likely to exceed $450,000 just for the weekend. That doesn't include the $320,000 in overtime incurred during the past 5 weeks. Because the eviction fell on the weekend, overtime is higher because more police had to come in on their days off.

"It terms of keeping the peace, it was appropriate, and I don't know how you put a dollar amount on that," the chief said.

But even the mayor was scratching his head on how to cover the costs. As he rode a packed elevator down from the Justice Center's 15th floor after Monday's news conference, Adams said, "Wow, we don't even have $450,000 extra in the budget right now."

But the mayor assured the officers squeezed in the elevator that they didn't need to worry about any upcoming layoffs.

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