Police close Occupy Norfolk downtown camp

Six protesters were arrested in Norfolk, Va., Thursday while police disbanded the Occupy Norfolk camp in the city's downtown, officials said.Two arrests were made as protesters yelled at officers who wouldn't allow them into the park after 9 a.m., The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported.All were taken to the jail and issued summonses, police spokesman Chris Amos said.City spokeswoman Lori Crouch said the city decided not to renew Occupy Norfolk's camping permit. A police officer notified the protesters early Thursday the permit would expire at 9 a.m."People were woken up at 6 a.m., told that they had three hours to get their stuff out," said Rex Bonney, one of the protesters, told the Virginian-Pilot.Crouch said protesters could still assemble and march.Occupy protesters embarked on a New York-to-Washington march on the East Coast as tensions between protesters and officials increased along the West Coast.Protesters from the original Occupy Wall Street encampment are taking their protest to Washington, beginning a two-week march to the nation's capital that is timed to coincide with the congressional supercommittee's Nov. 23 deadline to reach a deal on slashing the federal deficit, Politico said.A post on the group's Web site said the protesters want the White House to know "what the 99 percent think about" President Barack Obama's temporary extension of the Bush-era tax cuts."Join the march to make sure these cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans are allowed to die!" the blog post said.Occupy Wall Street began in mid-September as a protest against inequitable distribution of wealth and other social issues, and has since spread at home and abroad.Thousands of college students, faculty and Occupy activists in California participated in a statewide protest that marked the first union of the Occupy movement with students against the financial handling of California's higher education system, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.Police in riot gear moved in on University of California-Berkeley's Sproul Plaza Wednesday in two violent confrontations with student protesters, preventing the students from building an Occupy encampment on the campus.Seven protesters were arrested during the afternoon confrontation. In the second confrontation, police had to break through a human chain to pull down tents and establish a perimeter on the steps of Sproul Hall.Andrew Snyder, 25, a graduate student, said he was "crushed" by police as they moved toward the tents and expressed surprise police acted forcefully twice in one day.Occupy Oakland protesters and Oakland City Council members chanted opposing slogans at each other Wednesday when protesters packed a news conference by five council members who were calling for the immediate dismantling of the encampment outside City Hall.Protesters shouted, "We are the 99 percent of Oakland!" as council members, business owners and members of the clergy responded with "Occupy Oakland must go."A spokeswoman for Oakland Mayor Jean Quan distributed the latest statement from the mayor, who has wavered on what to do about the Occupy encampment previously. In her latest statement Quan called on campers to leave and the city to remove the campers."We renew our call on Occupy Oakland to make a decision to leave immediately," Quan's statement read.