Hundreds of NYPD officers swept through the encampment outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan just before 4 a.m. on Wednesday, clearing out the month-long occupation without warning.
Lines of police were seen approaching the camp at around 3:45 a.m., ripping down tents and tarps used by protesters and the park's homeless population. Seven men were taken into custody with charges pending, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
Videos shows police officers with riot shields and tactical gear forming a line on the east side of the encampment, as another group of cops tosses the camp's physical infrastructure into the back of a Department of Sanitation truck.
"They tried to run us over with bikes," said Nene Thompkins, a 19-year-old woman living at the camp. "They pushed us with shields. They told us we couldn't be on the sidewalk so walk on the street, then as soon as we got on the street they ambushed us."
"They held my brother down, he wasn't resisting, they was all on top of him," she added. "There was like 30 cops on him, they were all manhandling him."
Occupy City Hall, later renamed Abolition Park, emerged on June 21st, as an off-shoot of the protests against violent and racist police brutality. Demonstrators initially convened ahead of the city's budget deadline to call for a $1 billion cut to the NYPD's nearly $6 billion budget. However, even after the budget was passed — with close to $1 billion in NYPD costs shifted to other departments — protesters remained committed to staying in City Hall Park.
Yessenia Benitez, a 29-year-old social worker, said she was "traumatized" by the NYPD's pre-dawn raid.
"There are families here," Benitez said. "There are individuals here who this is their only safe space. We provide them with free mental health resources, free hot meals, free clothing...the police came in, they didn’t give a warning and they started throwing people’s items."
Other observers say they were happy to see the encampment dispersed.
“This is our city. This is my city,” said one man, who declined to give his name. Referring to the graffiti on nearby court buildings, he added: “I’ve been in this city for over 29 years and to see all this is heartbreaking.”
Occupiers and police have clashed on a number of occasions. In recent weeks, the park has become home to a number of homeless New Yorkers, many of whom said they benefitted from the encampment.
"Like I was saying this whole time I was inside the park, when this shit finally does get shut down, I'm going to go right back around the corner and go back to being homeless," said 20-year-old Romeo Thibou, who had stayed at the camp for the last month. "It feels like I'm homeless again. It's the same thing as before [but] it's like a sense of comfort is gone."
The raid also comes one day after President Donald Trump threatened to send federal agents to police a number of American cities, including New York.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio did not respond to a request for comment. Asked about the encampment on Tuesday, de Blasio said, "There is a balance we always strike between the right to protest and especially public safety. And I always put public safety first while respecting constitutional rights. That decision will be made by the NYPD as things emerge."
In 2011, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg ordered the NYPD to clear the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, then-Public Advocate de Blasio released a statement saying, “Mayor Bloomberg made a needlessly provocative and legally questionable decision to clear Zuccotti Park in the dead of night.” He added that public safety and defense of the First Amendment "are not exclusive to one another."
UPDATE: Mayor de Blasio defended the decision to clear the camp at 4 a.m., claiming the occupation "had become less and less about protest, more and more about homeless individuals who have gathered there."
He said he authorized the raid on Tuesday and praised the NYPD's handling of the operation. Comparisons to his earlier criticism of Bloomberg's Occupy Wall Street clearing were "apples and oranges," he added, since that encampment was "a political situation, a protest situation."
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said that one person was arrested for allegedly throwing a brick at a police officer, and six others were given summonses for refusing to disperse. Nobody was injured, he said.
"I couldn't be happier with how this one turned out," Shea added. "I would categorize this as one for the win column and another step toward getting back to normalcy in New York."
