Anyone recall police having to raid a Tea Party?

(SF Gate) — Police swept through Occupy Oakland’s encampment in a plaza outside City Hall and a second, smaller camp nearby early today, arresting 85 people who were protesting as part of a nationwide movement against economic inequality and corporate greed.

City officials said they had been forced to clear the encampments because of sanitary and public safety concerns.

Several hundred officers from numerous law enforcement agencies began making arrests shortly before 5 a.m. and removing tents and makeshift shelters at the Occupy Oakland protest at Frank Ogawa Plaza near 14th Street and Broadway.

By 5:05 a.m., the bulk of the arrests had been completed, and arrestees were led away in plastic handcuffs. Most were arrested for unlawful assembly and illegal lodging, police said.

The police action in front of City Hall involved hundreds of officers from at least 10 law enforcement agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, the Alameda County sheriff’s office and various East Bay police departments. Squads of officers had assembled at the Oakland Coliseum before traveling downtown in convoys.

Officers in riot helmets began arriving in force and formed a line in the street adjacent to the plaza while motorcycle officers shut down the street. Some protesters began shouting, “Cops, go home!”

Protesters pulled a metal trash container into the middle of the intersection, and officers quickly pushed it to the side of the road.