Like many of the Occupy movement sites, police officers stepped in to clear the campgrounds, but unlike the recent violence that has broken out recently, officials were able to clear out Occupy L.A. protestors in a peaceful manner. The camp, which resided in City Hall's south lawn, was the nation's largest Occupy camp before hundreds of police officers quickly encircled the demonstrators and peacefully arrested more than 200 demonstrators (Linthicum).
Police used a new technique to gather protestors rather than their previously used methods of creating a single line and sweeping through the park to force protestors out as they got in their way. Just minutes after midnight on November 30th, police officers poured out of City Hall and surrounding streets and encircled the demonstrators within ten minutes. There were some cases of thrown rocks and taunting, but in general protestors either left on their own or resigned themselves to a peaceful arrest by forcing officers to carry them out of the campgrounds (Linthicum). .
"They were like storm troopers. They encircled us," said one protestor, Cheryl Aichele, who joined other demonstrators in linking arms and chanting, "We are peaceful" and "We are the 99%" as officers worked their way through the crowd (Linthicum).
According to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, the sweep was very successful. "That was the hardest part," Beck said. "That first contact: You learn if your officers are going to break ranks and if people are going to get physical. It went as well as we could have expected" (Linthicum). .
The peaceful evacuation can largely be attributed to the protestors' vow to remain peaceful throughout their entire time at the camp and then comfortable relationship that they established with police officers when the camp began months ago. At one point, protestors formed a line and began chanting, "You're sexy. You're cute. Take off your riot suit" (Linthicum).
