Police, Occupy Wall Street | featured news

Police overnight cleared out protesters in Nashville, Tenn., and San Diego, Calif., as other Occupy encampments came under growing pressure from authorities to abandon sites in parks and plazas.

Riot police in Oakland dispersed hundreds of protesters with tear gas on Tuesday night as crowds tried to re-enter a plaza outside of City Hall that the authorities had cleared of an encampment earlier in the day. After the forceful response to the Occupy Oakland protests, officers in Atlanta moved in early Wednesday morning to clear a similar camp in that city’s central Woodruff Park. At least 53 people connected to the protest group Occupy Atlanta were arrested, and the park was cleared by 2 a.m. Eastern time, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

Oakland police raided the Occupy Oakland encampments early Tuesday morning and reportedly arrested dozens of protesters. Oakland police confirmed that an operation was in progress to clear out the encampments but said it was not clear yet how many protesters had been arrested.

Anti-Wall Street demonstrators of the Occupy Chicago movement stood their ground in a downtown park in noisy but peaceful defiance of police orders to clear out, prompting 130 arrests early Sunday, authorities said....