The NYPD met Occupiers returning to Zuccotti Park to celebrate the movement’s six-month anniversary Saturday with intimidation and force, flooding the area with hundreds of officers during the afternoon and evening before closing the park and making arrests at night.

The revelers were defiant, many of them vowing a return of the movement as the weather improves this spring. –ARK

AP via The Huffington Post:

Some demonstrators locked arms and sat down in the middle of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street after police announced on a bullhorn at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday that the park was closed. Officers then poured into the park, forcing most of the crowd out and surrounding a small group that stayed behind. Police formed a human ring around the park to keep protesters out.

Several people were arrested, police said. An unused public transit bus was brought in to cart away about a dozen demonstrators in plastic handcuffs. One female under arrest had difficulty breathing and was taken away in an ambulance to be treated.

For hours, the demonstrators had been chanting and holding impromptu meetings in the park to celebrate the anniversary of the movement that has brought attention to economic inequality, as police mainly kept their distance.

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