NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A judge upheld New York City's legal justification for evicting Occupy Wall Street protesters from a park on Tuesday after police in riot gear broke up a two-month-old demonstration against economic inequality.
Protesters were allowed to return but Justice Michael Stallman found the city, at least for now, can ban them from camping in tents and sleeping bags at Zuccotti Park between Wall Street and the World Trade Center reconstruction site in lower Manhattan.
As a fellow protester read the judge's decision from a Twitter feed, Julietta Salgado and her friend Tajh Sutton, both Brooklyn College students, embraced and cried.
"It's just a snag," Salgado said, her eyes rimmed with tears. "Every time they beat us down, we come back stronger."
Police removed barricades at two points, letting people back in one by one. Shortly after dark, several hundred protesters were in the park under a light drizzle as hundreds more waited for a chance to get in.
Since September 17, protesters have occupied the park to protest what they see as an unjust economic system that favors the wealthiest 1 percent at a time of persistently high employment. They also decry a political system that bailed out banks after reckless lending sparked the financial crisis.
The Occupy Wall Street movement triggered similar protests in cities throughout the United States and the world.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided the protesters had become a health and fire safety hazard and ordered police to evict them from the camp, where city officials cited reports of sexual assaults, thefts and drug dealing.
Hundreds of police stormed the camp around 1 a.m. and dismantled tents, tarpaulins, outdoor furniture, mattresses and signs, arresting 147 people, including about a dozen who had chained themselves to each other and to trees.
With the park cleared of protesters, sanitation workers dismantled tents, hauled away trash and blasted the square with water cannon, erasing odors of urine and human waste.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said it was "deeply concerned" about the police department's "heavy-handed tactics" and said seven journalists covering the events were arrested.
The eviction followed similar actions in Atlanta, Portland and Salt Lake City. Unlike in Oakland, California, where police used tear gas and stun grenades, New York police said most protesters left peacefully.
In London, authorities said they were resuming legal action to try to shift anti-capitalism protesters who have set up camp at St Paul's Cathedral.
Toronto officials also told protesters to break camp and leave on Tuesday.
BLOOMBERG'S CALCULATION
Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire whose wealth made him a target of the protesters, ordered the eviction at the request of the park owner, commercial real estate company Brookfield Office Properties.
The mayor's loyalties have been divided since the protests began. Socially liberal and a supporter of free speech rights, Bloomberg is also a former Wall Street trader who made a fortune selling news and information to the financial industry through his eponymous company, Bloomberg LP.
The police raid came two days before protesters planned to stage a rally outside the New York Stock Exchange that could have disrupted floor trade.
New York officials had been set to allow protesters back into the park without tents and sleeping bags but then they got notice of a court challenge, at which point they left the barricades up pending legal clarification.
The National Lawyers Guild got a temporary restraining order allowing the protesters back in with tents and sleeping bags.
Stallman then overturned that order after a hearing, saying protesters' rights to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution were still protected.
The judge ruled merely that the case lacked the urgency to approve or strike down the new park rules immediately. The underlying case will be heard at a later date.
Bloomberg expressed satisfaction with the ruling while lawyers for the protesters considered whether to appeal.
"The court's ruling vindicates our position that First Amendment rights do not include the right to endanger the public or infringe on the rights of others by taking over a public space with tents and tarps," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Yetta Kurland, a lawyer for the protesters, said they will consider legal options but have not decided what to do next.
"They will continue to occupy Wall Street. They will continue to demonstrate," Kurland said. "We're going to continue to battle in the courts and our clients will continue to battle in the streets." (Additional reporting by Joseph Ax and Karen Freifeld; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Michelle Nichols; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
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