Zuccotti Park Eviction: NYPD Orders Occupy Wall Street Protesters To Temporarily Evacuate Park [LATEST UPDATES]

Police cleared New York’s Zuccotti Park early Tuesday so that sanitation crews could clean the site Occupy Wall Street protesters have inhabited for two months, while in Berkeley, Calif., activists planned another attempt at setting up a new camp.

At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, New York City police handed out notices from the owner of Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return in several hours, but without sleeping bags, tarps or tents.Hundreds of New York City police officers began clearing Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters early Tuesday, telling the people there that the nearly two-month-old camp would be “cleared and restored” before the morning and that any demonstrator who did not leave would be arrested. Occupy Wall Street protesters have been ordered to leave Zuccotti Park, their longtime encampment in Lower Manhattan but they've been told they can return once it has been cleaned.

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At about 1 a.m. Tuesday, police handed out notices from the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. Protesters were told they could return, but without sleeping bags, tarps or tents.

Paul Browne, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, says most people began filing out of the park once they received the notices; one person was arrested for disorderly conduct. Brown says the park was not heavily populated Tuesday morning.