PORTLAND, Ore (Reuters) ? Police cracked down on anti-Wall Street protesters on the East and West Coasts over the weekend, arresting demonstrators in Portland, Oregon and in Washington, D.C., authorities said on Sunday.
Portland police arrested 19 people who were trying to occupy a downtown park, including one man charged with criminal mischief and trespassing for climbing onto the roof of City Hall, police said.
Some 300 people had attempted to gather in Shemanski Park, beginning late on Saturday night, and then marched through the city's streets, police said.
Protesters who have been demanding economic justice for average Americans who they say suffer while the government bails out Wall Street firms have been getting arrested in recent weeks as officials try to disassemble their encampments.
In several cities, officials have cited dangerous health and safety conditions and the cost of added policing and other security measures in a time of tight budgets.
An unidentified male was reported dead at the Occupy Denton camp at the University of North Texas campus, according to a post on the university's Facebook page. It was unclear when and how the person died, and campus police were investigating, it said.
The Portland demonstrators said on Sunday they will lobby the city for a location to pitch their tents.
Several people held a vigil outside Portland City Hall, asking that a ban on camping in parks be lifted. They said they plan to stay until the city's rule is changed.
"This will be an ongoing nonviolent effort to maintain focus and attention to the issues of inequality that 99 percent of America face as the result of corporate greed and corruption," they said on their website.
Protester Kip Silverman said the demonstrators' civil rights were being "trampled on" by the city.
"We have a certain expectation for how government and the people should work together in Portland, and it is not happening right now," he said.
In Washington on Sunday, several people were arrested as police tried to take down a two-story-high wooden structure that had been erected in a downtown park where Occupy DC protesters have been camped for weeks.
"It's been determined that this (structure) is unsafe and illegal," said Lieutenant Robert Glover of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
Several protesters climbed on top of the structure in McPherson Square and chanted: "Give us water, give us food, document what is happening," while a crowd of about 200 people looked on.
Glover said police were not forcing the protesters out of the park. "We are not looking to push this thing further," he said.
There was no immediate word on the number of arrests.
More than 300 arrests were made in Los Angeles last week as police cleared an Occupy encampment.
The movement began in a downtown park in New York City, but protesters were cleared from that site two weeks ago.
Oklahoma City protesters got a temporary restraining order from a judge last week to avoid being forcibly ousted.
In Seattle, however, a judge on Friday rejected a bid by activists to block their eviction from a community college, clearing the way for the city to remove them as early as the next few days.
(Additional reporting by Paul Simao in Washington and Mary Slosson in Los Angeles, Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by David Bailey)
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