Occupy Long Beach ends with arrests, citations

Occupy Long Beach ended Sunday with arrests and citations after demonstrators clashed with police trying to usher them out of a public park.

Long Beach Police said two people were arrested, and two others received citations, for allegedly refusing to leave the park after its 10 p.m. closing time. The protest began Saturday.

Jason James, 30, of Long Beach and an unidentified minor were arrested for allegedly violating a city ordinance that prohibits camping in a closed public park and for allegedly obstructing a police officer.

Police said that the 35 to 40 demonstrators in Long Beach's downtown Lincoln Park were peaceful Sunday and that most of them followed an order to move to the sidewalk when the park closed.

But as police searched tents in the park, they found a few had stayed behind. Those arrested and cited were among those who refused to leave, police said.

As officers moved through the park checking tents, some demonstrators chanted and yelled at them but mostly dispersed once the arrests and citations began, police said.

The protest, like others across the nation inspired by the continuing Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York, was meant to protest corporate greed.