Courtesy Tom Ferda

Scores of people, police and, of course, Occupy L.A. hit downtown yesterday for the annual May Day marches and rallies. The streets were clogged with an estimated 10,000-plus people who were there to speak their minds on immigration reform, and -- wait! -- did that sign just say what we think it said?

Of course, it would just be an example of someone exercising their First Amendment rights. The phrase is not unknown to us, right? It has been used in various protests across the world at least since the N.W.A song made the phrase popular in 1988.

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@PeggySue_6 / Yfrog

Updated at the bottom: A spokesman says Sheriff Lee Baca delayed the foreclosure so it would take place after Christmas. Additional details, including a cash offer for the family to leave, after the jump.

A bastion of the contemporary Occupy movement is no more. A foreclosed house dubbed Fort Hernandez was cleared out by sheriff's deputies early this morning, observers report.

The eviction after a four-month sit-in at the Hernandez family home in Van Nuys was reported about 4:30 a.m. An witness said via Twitter that there were "no injuries or arrests."

We reached out to L.A. County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore for comment ...

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Jessica Wilzig

More than a year after an invasion of LAPD troops cleared the L.A. City Hall lawn of a months-long Occupy encampment, the city and county are being sued over the action.

The federal, class-action suit filed on behalf of about 300 occupiers claims their "rights to assembly, association, freedom from unlawful seizure and liberty" were violated when 1,400 of cops marched in and uprooted the demonstrators Nov. 30 of last year.

A key point?

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Occupy Freedom LA

Occupy L.A: Not dead yet, it seems.

Almost a year after the raid on Occupy's encampment at L.A. City Hall, the movement moves on -- this time targeting Deutsche Bank in Century City.

Six people were arrested this afternoon for allegedly ...

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Occupy Fights Foreclosures

It was almost a year ago that the Occupy movement was plucked from its L.A. campsite, the lawn of L.A. City Hall.

But the movement is still going, and today occupiers targeted Deutsche Bank with a series of protests at a branch, at the German Consulate and, most interestingly, at a bank executive's La Cañada Flintridge home.

Two bus-fulls of demonstrators, in fact, ...

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OccupyFreedomLA / USTREAM

And you thought Occupy was over?

With nearly a month before the presidential election, it appears that the Occupy movement has dwindled from public view. But on the one-year anniversary of L.A.'s own occupation of the City Hall Park, some protesters claim that the movement is back.

Some twitter accounts claimed today that ...

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@OccupyLA

The Hernandez house.

Occupy has been a mostly quiet force since it was booted from the City Hall lawn late last year, save for a few eruptions like July's clash with cops over "chalking" at Art Walk.

Maybe the movement has found its forte, however, in more focused occupations, like one today of a Van Nuys residence it says is slated for foreclosure. Instead of helping residents move out of what has become the "home to Occupy San Fernando Valley," they're staying and partying:

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Injury at Chalk Walk in July.

Updated at the bottom with a claim that an Art Walk music event has been cancelled. First posted at 7:02 a.m.

As cops were gearing up today for another monthly summer Art Walk in downtown Los Angeles, members of Occupy L.A. were hoping that antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan would show up at their DTLA event tonight, which won't be at Art Walk this time.

At the last Art Walk chaos erupted as police took rocks and bottles after trying to get members of Occupy L.A. to clear sidewalks where they were making temporary imagery during a concurrent event they call Chalk Walk.

Officers responded to the demonstrators with less-than-lethal rounds, sparking days of controversy after some of the occupiers showed off their wounds and claimed that all they were doing was drawing on sidewalks with chalk. This time around ...

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alexanderschaefer.blogspot.com

A similar piece that Schaeffer did last week.

Updated at the bottom with video of the chalking and arrest.

Semi-famous local artist Alexander Schaefer -- the same guy whose paintings of burning banks (including Chase Bank) went viral last year after they prompted an LAPD investigation -- was arrested today around 12:10 p.m. for misdemeanor vandalism.

Schaefer was chalking on the sidewalk outside the Chase branch at 6th Street and Figueroa, the LAPD confirms.

Cops have obviously had their eye on Schaefer...

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mpeake / Flickr

An injured man at Thursday's 'Chalk Walk.'

Occupy LA organizers claim police went over the line in confrontations with Chalk Walk demonstrators at Art Walk last Thursday night -- and that video proves it.

They say a skateboard-carrying man was shot with a non-lethal around and then kicked by cops. Officers "smash his face into the pavement," occupiers said.

But the two YouTube clips they provided (at the bottom) don't seem to prove a thing.

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Nancy Casanova via Twitter

"Here's the pic of the girl who got detained by police for writing on the ground with chalk."

Occupy L.A.'s plan last night was to use the popular Downtown L.A. Art Walk as a stage for their own "Chalk Walk" -- the most high-profile demonstration so far in their ongoing crusade to prove chalking is a Constitutional right.

Although much chalking was accomplished (messages ranged from "arrest corrupt bankers not chalkers" to the blunt "FUCK LAPD"), it soon gave way to a larger conflict:

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occupywallst.org

Obamacare: Just another money-making scheme of the 1 percent?

Who knew? Occupy Wall Street (and its Los Angeles faction) hates Obamacare.

That's because, though your run-of-the-mill Westside liberal is likely to applaud the "health care for all!" initiative, the more skeptical end of the 99 percent sees it as just another victory for corporate America:

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It was fun while it lasted.

Local politicians keep insisting that their new ban on camping in city parks was not in reaction to Occupy L.A.

That's insanely hard to believe, considering they're smack-dab in the middle of a makeover story starring the L.A. City Hall lawn -- which got thoroughly wrecked by the hundreds of protesters that camped on it all through winter.

Here's the new ordinance, passed unanimously today by the City Council. But not without a public-comment stinkstorm from homeless advocates and Occupites...

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A

The Central City Association is an influential downtown business group that has certainly supported the kind of loft development and gentrification that has transformed L.A.'s core in the last 10 years.

While some of you celebrate at Art Walk, happy hour and in the club, there are folks downtown who feel that all the new people, businesses and dwellings have come at the expense of Skid Row's massive homeless population, which they say has been pushed out and targeted by cops.

Now they're doing something about it:

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So close, yet so far.

Update: From the start, Civic Park has been more of an expensive tourist draw (and cement carpet) than a people's hangout. See LA Weekly print stories "Funny Math on Downtown L.A. Civic Park" and "Los Angeles Civic Park's Stillbirth."

Update: It appears there's some confusion over whether the park belongs to the city or the county. Details at the bottom.

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rhino neal

Updated at the bottom: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck wants to find this guy. Plus, see video of another cop getting bonked on the head. And, check out our May Day protest coverage, with photos. First posted at 6:08 a.m.

One skateboarder is accused of occupying a officer's riot helmet with his board during yesterday's May Day worker demonstrations downtown.

The female cop got hit so hard that it cracked her helmet and she was put in a hospital, LAPD Officer Karen Rayner told the Weekly.

All turned out okay, however:

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Who loves Occupy? White people love Occupy!

The classic conservative sneer about Occupy Wall Street (and its L.A. faction) is that the protester base is primarily white hipsters/hippies too lazy to get a job.

And a new survey out of Loyola Marymount University doesn't exactly contradict the stereotype. Based on input from 1,605 Los Angeles residents, the survey finds that liberal, highly educated white males are most likely to ...

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Tessa Stuart

Sixth Street from MacArthur Square to Pershing Sqaure

Things did not go well yesterday in Seattle, San Francisco or Oakland, where May Day protests were marred by violence, vandalism, and the use of tear gas.

Here in LA, the much-anticipated actions, in the works since January, had the air of...

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With their powers combined, "cars and bikes, occupiers and unions, community orgs and organic communities" will be descending upon the downtown L.A. financial district from all sides this May Day.

May 1 is a traditional day of action for labor unions, so Occupy Los Angeles (and their fellow bankster-haters around the country) will apparently be using the date as a spring resurgence...

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exiledonline.com

"Out of jail, thinking that the worst was behind me..."

Well, this is awkward.

The same citizen journalist who started a firestorm against the LAPD last winter (for allegedly using brutality against Occupy L.A. protesters while forcing them out of their City Hall encampment) now claims he contracted more than bruises from the encounter.

Levine was arrested in the wee hours of November 30, 2011...

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