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Los Angeles to evict Occupy protest camp on Monday

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 03:09 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

LOS ANGELES, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Hundreds of anti-Wall Street protesters will be evicted on Monday from their encampment in front of Los Angeles City Hall, city officials said on Friday.

The nearly two-month-old encampment is among the oldest and largest on the West Coast aligned with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations protesting economic inequality in the country and the excesses of the U.S. financial system.

"We're asking the participants in the Occupy LA encampment to pack their belongings and leave in an orderly manner," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a news conference with Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

"It is time to close the park and repair the grounds so that we can restore public access to the park," Villaraigosa said.

Protesters must pack up their tents and dismantle their encampment by 12:01 a.m. (0801 GMT) on Nov. 28, the mayor said.

Staking its place since Oct. 1 on the grounds surrounding the city hall, the compound has grown to roughly 400 tents and 700 to 800 people, according to estimates by organizers and municipal officials.

Compared to other major cities, Los Angeles has been relatively accommodating to its Occupy group. Villaraigosa at one point provided rain ponchos to campers, but he said on Friday that the eviction deadline was firm.

"It took a couple of hours to put up those tents," he said. "It only takes a couple of hours to take them down."

Villaraigosa said the eviction would be handled differently from the crackdowns seen in cities like Oakland.

The Occupy Oakland encampment was plagued by violence before being shut down by police earlier this month. Oakland's first attempt to evict its encampment sparked confrontations between protesters and police.

Former U.S. Marine Scott Olsen was critically injured during those altercations, transforming what initially were largely New York-based protests into a nationwide movement.

"We've not stared each other down across barricades and barbed wire," Villaraigosa said, referring to the riot police and tear gas that had been used in in Oakland.

Beck said he wanted to avoid violence and arrests.

"This is a national movement that the city of Los Angeles wanted to accommodate as best we could," Beck said. "We have been reasonable. We have given 56 days."

Jim Lafferty, an attorney advocating for Occupy LA, said earlier this week that the protesters had been offered space in an old bookstore inside a shopping mall as well as two plots of land. The group, however, rejected the relocation proposal.

(Writing by Mary Slosson in Colorado; Editing by David Bailey and Paul Simao)