And the crowd of people in the surrounding blocks grew by the thousands as the midnight hour hit. It's as big as the Pioneer Square NYE party, no kidding! All of the surrounding sidewalks are FULL of people!
And there's even a guy with a french horn sitting on the bronze elk.
This IS Portland, folks...we're not like other cities.
Oh, and this is going to last for hours. The Portland Police isn't going to start arresting people just because it hit midnight. They're going to wait until the crowds die down, just as they did at Jamison Square.
Update 1:54 am: Things changed dramatically when the mounted police tried to use its horses to push out protesters. In a quick moment, someone threw a jumping jack firework into the police, one mounted officer fell off his horse, and things very nearly exploded out of control.
The horses pulled back, then officers pulled out the guy who threw the firework, and as quickly as things escalated, they suddenly calmed down.
There are thousands of people in front of the police blocking them from entering the park, and there are nearly as many behind the officers watching the events. There is no way this ends peacefully if the police intend to push those thousands of people out. Tensions shot up, but the police have moved back, and the horses have cleared out of the area completely (for now).
I think they realized just how scary things might get. There are WAY MORE protesters than police officers by a wide margin.
Update 2:24 am: The police are backtracking a block. Looks to me like the police are trying to pull the most confrontational protesters off the center area, and may attempt to cut them off from the side, blocking them from the central core.
The confrontation from earlier appears to have accomplished the opposite. People that were starting to peel off have now come back and the crowd is in the thousands.
Update 4:20 am: The mood has changed back to a more festive atmosphere once again, and people are chanting, playing drums, and the bicycle brigade has continued going around.
This is a very surreal event. It looks an awful lot like a transformative, transcendental moment in the movement that might ratchet up the entire Occupy movement. OWS may be the birth of the movement, but this morning / day may be the event which becomes the framework for the whole movement.
Update 6:00 am Sunday morning: Well, no evictions. The mayor tweeted about 5:30 am, "We are going to be as patient & as peaceful as possible." And then in a response to someone who questioned why the Mayor wasn't letting the police enforce the rules, the Mayor tweeted that, "Police incident cmdr makes timing/tactical decisions in these situations."
As a reminder however, the Mayor was quite specific, when he said that, "on or after November 13, by authority of Portland City Code, the City will close Lownsdale and Chapman Squares." There's a lot of leeway that the Mayor and the police.
Crowds however, have shrunk quite a bit, down to about 1000+ or so, perhaps. Still outnumbering the police, though.
So what happens when day breaks? There's a rally at Pioneer Square at noon, so there is a big opportunity for the movement to make a big statement all day Sunday if it explodes at Pioneer Square.
Final update 7:00 am: And it all ends. Protesters, spectators and police all got tired and called it a morning...to go home and go to sleep. Some are still camping out, but no mass arrests and no confrontation.
The Occupy Portland now has a chance to unilaterally announce that it'll vacate the parks, and move to the next step, and look good in the process. I still think they should move to the underside of the I-5 along the Eastbank Esplanade, and make daily or weekly marches, around the waterfront.
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