[] [BTBBT Daily - 12/8]San Francisco Occupy camp taken down

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ABOUT two dozen police officers remained at the scene early yesterday of the Occupy encampment in San Francisco, the United States, hours after authorities kicked out the protesters, took down about 100 tents and arrested 70 people as the camp was dismantled.

The officers lined up to block access on Market Street while trash crews rake up paper and plastic bottles and remove chairs and other belongings that accumulated at the camp over the past two months.

Dozens of police cars, fire engines and ambulances surrounded the campsite at Justin Herman Plaza and blocked off the area during the raid.

The effort began shortly after 1am, said officer Albie Esparza. Police gave campers a few minutes' warning to pack up and leave and then swept in, he said.

The removal was mostly peaceful but one officer suffered a minor injury when two protesters threw a chair that cracked his face shield, Esparza said. They were arrested on suspicion of felony assault. Dozens of others were arrested for illegal lodging in the plaza and failure to disperse.

"They gave us about a five-minute notice to vacate the plaza and then came through and started tearing down the tents and putting them into trash compactor trucks," said Gene Doherty, 47, an Occupy protester who was not at the site during the raid but watched it on a live streaming website.

Radio reports said protesters could be heard chanting as they were taken away on a bus.

Police remained at the site after protesters briefly blocked a major thoroughfare nearby. Work crews were busy clearing debris from the tent city, which was set up in mid-October to protest bank bailouts and economic injustice in the US.

Doherty said the Occupy protesters planned a noon rally at the site and still had several "mobile occupations" throughout the city.

"We will come back and reoccupy," he said. "A large segment of our community has no other options. They don't have a home to go back to; this was their home."

Protesters will continue to "send a message that this is our right to protest, our right to assemble, and to talk about the economic injustices in the world," Doherty said.