Police take down Occupy LA camp, arrest nearly 300

Police in riot gear and biohazard suits removed anti-Wall Street activists from their camp around Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday, arresting nearly 300 people and fencing off the area.

On the East Coast, about 100 Occupy movement protesters in Philadelphia swiftly and peacefully vacated their encampment overnight, but police later arrested 52 around the city on charges ranging from obstructing a highway to assaulting a police officer, officials said.

In Los Angeles, some 1,400 police officers brought in on buses surrounded the Occupy LA camp after midnight and declared protesters congregated on the lawn, sidewalks and streets around City Hall to be an unlawful assembly, ordering them to disperse or face arrest in line with an eviction order from the mayor.

The Los Angeles encampment, which officials had allowed to remain even as other cities cleared out similar compounds, had been among the largest on the West Coast aligned with a 2-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement against economic inequality and alleged excesses of the U.S. financial system.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had originally welcomed the protesters, even supplying them with ponchos for rainy weather. But as city officials complained of crime, sanitation problems and property damage he decided the group had to go.

Villaraigosa initially set an eviction deadline for 12:01 a.m. Monday but city officials held off on enforcing it for 48 hours in the hope protesters would drift away on their own.

The strategy appeared to pay off, with police avoiding the use of tear gas or pepper spray that marked evictions of protesters in Oakland and other cities. Aside from minor initial scuffles, the crowd was boisterous but mostly peaceful and the bulk of the operation was done before dawn.

"I couldn't be prouder of what I believe is maybe the finest moment in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department," Villaraigosa told reporters. He said there were no major injuries to police or protesters.