Police have arrested 31 protesters at an anti-Wall Street encampment in Washington and torn down the wooden shelter that activists illegally erected overnight, prompting a nine-hour confrontation. Officers on foot and horseback converged on McPherson Square, near the White House and where demonstrators have been living since late September, leading several activists to climb onto the structure and refuse to come down.
After making dozens of arrests Sunday near the roofless hut some 25 feet (eight meters) tall, US Park Police deployed an armoured car and motorised lift to try to remove six hardy demonstrators who had clung on limpet-like to the shelter. Ladders were then used to ease down the last protester who for more than half an hour held off five officers who had tried to attach a rope to his body to lift him off the structure. But he was eventually prised off its beams, and a fork-lift truck later moved in and flattened it.
A crowd of around 400 people had gathered to watch the unfolding spectacle, and many of them shouted "shame on you" at police as arrests were made at the site while also chanting "liberty and justice will prevail." Despite moves to evict "Occupy" protesters from similar camps in New York and other cities, authorities in the US capital have generally refrained from taking action against the village of tents and tarps that has sprung up here.
But the erection of a wooden building, against park regulations, prompted officers to swarm into the square around 11:30 am, and the standoff ensued. Sergeant David Schlosser, a park police spokesman, told AFP that 31 people were arrested and charged - 15 of them for crossing a police line and 16 for defying police orders.
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