Facing a protester shouting "fascist pigs!" over a bullhorn, cops cleansed San Francisco's final Occupy encampment a little before midnight last night in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco building at 101 Market. According to the Chronicle, "The clearance began at 11:35 p.m. when about 70 police officers suddenly trotted up in formation and surrounded the blocklong stretch of more than two dozen campers on Market Street in front of the Federal Reserve Building." Around 20 or so protesters who didn't budge, it seems, were taken into police custody while the camp was disassembled and washed clean.

SFPD said they had distributed literature to campers over the last week or so, telling them they would be disbanded. Occupiers say that the area is public space. One bystander at the scene, James Miller, told the Chron, "they're up here until midnight or 1 a.m. drinking and using drugs, and then you hear the screams and fights start to happen." But an Occupy SF media person rebuts, "the things said about our camp are not true." And on and on.

No word yet if another camp will present itself anytime soon, but the outlook seems murky. Maybe after election season ends when people need to have nowhere else to focus their political energies. Stay tuned.

[Chron]