Scores of police swept through the downtown location of Occupy Miami Tuesday night, ejecting several dozen demonstrators and arresting a few of them while shutting down the protest camp after three and a half months.
The police, wearing riot gear and banging batons on their plastic shields as they advanced, cleared demonstrators from within half a-dozen blocks of the camp site, on a lawn just west of the Stephen P. Clark Government Center. They also tore down tents and makeshift dwellings left on the site.
The operation was carried out almost completely without violence, though some of the demonstrators said one of their number was clubbed when caught up in an advancing police line.
Six Occupy Miami protesters refused to leave, staying inside a flimsy barricade of plywood and old mattresses, and were presumably arrested — but reporters, chased from the camp along with demonstrators, didn’t witness it.
At least one protester was arrested as cops continued to advance down Northwest Second Avenue. A man laden with camera gear — police said he identified himself as a photographer for a web site — was arrested on Northwest Third Street. Police said he refused to move when ordered.
Police didn’t identify any of those arrested.
