Portland demonstrators arrested after occupying downtown park

PORTLAND – Police moved into a downtown Portland park Saturday night and arrested anti-Wall Street protesters who refused to vacate the park, authorities said.

Officers began detaining protesters with flex cuffs and hauling them away around 8:30 p.m. Saturday night, after the park was closed a half-hour early, Sgt. Pete Simpson said.

Several Occupy Portland demonstrators were arrested in the police action that was still under way at 9:30 p.m. Simpson said he doesn’t yet have an exact number of arrests.

Earlier Saturday, Occupy Portland demonstrators set up tents in a portion of the park that runs through Southwest Portland and vowed to stay through the winter, defying police who have said overnight camping will not be allowed.

Authorities had earlier warned that erecting structures violates park rules and could lead to police action to remove protesters.

Police had warned of arrests if the protesters stayed in the park beyond the 9 p.m. closing time. But city officials said they shut down the park area a half-hour early after protesters confronted park workers and prevented them from carrying out their job of enforcing park codes.

Earlier in the evening, the Occupy Portland website declared, “We have a park!” It said, “The kitchen is open,” and invited the public to bring love, tents, sleeping bags and snacks.

The park is five blocks west of Lownsdale Square, one of the two parks that demonstrators occupied for more than a month until police evicted them on Nov. 13. Lownsdale and two adjacent parks that had been the site of demonstrations remained fenced Saturday.

On Friday, Mayor Sam Adams told KATU-TV that he won’t allow the protesters to camp at any city park “based on the experience that these encampments become inherently dangerous.” Adams cited concerns about drug use, violence and safety when he ordered the original encampments shut down last month.

Occupy Portland spokesman Jordan LeDoux earlier told the Associated Press that having a camp provides a place for demonstrators to focus their efforts and engage the public. He said the new camp would try to avoid some of the problems that might draw the ire of city officials.