Four ‘Occupy’ Santa Ana protesters arrested

Four “Occupy” demonstrators were arrested for violating Santa Ana’s ordinance against camping on public property, police said Sunday.

(Photo by Jonathan Nafarrete / Flickr)

The four men “elected to set up a tent” in the Civic Center after the group’s permit for the day’s event expired at 8 p.m., Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

“They were given 15 minutes to take it down, then they were cited and released,” he said. “They were given 20 more minutes to take it down, then they were arrested.”

The arrests followed a 10-hour demonstration attended by about 120 people, Bertagna said. The crowd had shrunk to about 40 people when the arrests were made, he said.

In Los Angeles, police initially tried to move demonstrators off the lawn surrounding City Hall between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., but no one has been forcing them to move overnight for the past week or so.

The “Occupy” movement — directed at corporate greed and what demonstrators say is the growing gap between rich and poor — started Sept. 17 in New York City and has since spread, with scores of people being arrested in Manhattan, Chicago and Orlando, Fla., among other places.