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[Update at the bottom of the page.]
Union Square Park is normally open 24 hours, but police have indicated that they are now closing the park and everyone must leave now. The protesters don't look like they plan to go anywhere. Emotions are probably running very high after the brutal arrests on March 17th. Protesters chanting "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?"
Police are now saying that people must leave and that they cannot even stand on the sidewalk, after first saying that the sidewalk is okay. Also, the police are closing down Union Square subway station. Protesters now singing "You ain't nothin' but a bad cop, lyin' all the time!"
It's just after midnight EST, police are now in the park with a megaphone announcing the park is closed. I can't tell now just how many people remain in the park as everyone has spread out. Oh, man, there is a pregnant woman having some sort of a medical issue and police are moving in from the opposite end of the park. It sounds as if an ambulance has arrived, and I think I hear a baby crying from that direction. Oh this poor woman, people are trying to surround and protect her, but there are individuals still taking pictures and they're having a confrontation.
The woman has just been wheeled out of the park on a stretcher. Barricades are going up at the park, and police are pushing protesters out of the park. Apparently, the occupiers have lost their constitutional rights again tonight. It's about 12:20 a.m. EST.
The Department of Homeland Security is on the scene, and everyone has a camera out. Another "Park is closed" announcement, with protesters chanting "Bullsh*t!"
Someone with the National Lawyer's Guild says that there has only been one arrest so far. Homeland Security and NYPD counter-terrorism watching the crowd closely. It's very odd how patient the NYPD is being with the crowd, and they've repeated many times now that they "don't want to see anyone get hurt."
People now soapboxing behind the steps about freedoms and brutalities, speaking to police through the megaphone.
The barricades are up all around the park now, they've been placed at the bottom of the steps to the formerly 24-hour park. Police are now erecting some sort of wooden barricades, and Union Square subway station has been shut down. Also, a female officer placed her hand over a photographer's camera lens and said she didn't want to be photographed. The cameraman asked for her badge number, and she turned around and told him to "get out of her face." She is still standing with her back to the crowd, and she is the only officer with her back to the crowd.
It seems the subway is still open, there are police in front of it, but it is open.
Final update:
Six protesters were arrested after police booted 200 Occupiers from Union Square Park overnight on Wednesday. Resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and obstructing justice were among the charges filed, a NYPD spokesman told the New York Times. Arguments over "unattended property" on the sidewalk fueled tensions between police and the protesters, who had claimed that the books and other items were their property.
