Photo by Glyn Lowe

The lawyer who has represented Occupy D.C. in federal court in previous appeals for the protest group to stay at McPherson Square said he’ll “be filing some paperwork,” in the wake of yesterday’s events, in which U.S. Park Police made an exhaustive sweep of the park in enforcing the National Park Service’s ban on camping there.

Standing on K Street NW under the floodlights police rolled out to continue their inspection after darkness fell, Jeffrey Light, the attorney, said NPS had exceeded the instructions set earlier in the week by a federal judge about the confiscation of protesters’ tents and other belongings. Dozens of Park Police officers in riot gear and NPS workers in hazardous-materials suits spent Saturday combing through the square to determine which of the hundreds of tents that have appeared there over the past four months were in compliance with park regulations. By day’s end, most had been removed, leaving McPherson Square a muddied, weatherbeaten tract.

“I’ve seen a couple tents completely empty and confiscated,” he said. Last week, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied Light’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Park Police evicting the protest group from the park its inhabited since October 2011. While yesterday’s enforcement was not an eviction, a police spokesman said, many demonstrators, seeing their tents be taken down, felt otherwise.

In court last week, a federal attorney representing NPS said absent a complete closure of McPherson Square, police would be instructed only to remove those tents in violation of the no-camping rules, which prohibit bedding materials and require tents to remain open at all times.

But on Saturday night, Light saw a different result. “With respect to taking tents, this is not what the government attorney promised,” he said. Throughout the day-long inspection, which continued into Sunday morning, several protesters told reporters their tents were removed even though they were clear of personal belongings. Light had warned in court that in earlier instances of police confiscating tents and other property, it was sometimes difficult for members of Occupy D.C. to reclaim their items.

Light said he was still processing everything he had seen Saturday, but he expects to be back in Boasberg’s courtroom early in the week to argue that the enforcement seen yesterday went too far. “I’ve also seen excessive force, but I’m not sure if I will bring that up,” he said.

On Sunday morning, Sgt. David Schlosser, the Park Police spokesman, said 11 people were arrested at McPherson Square—four for not obeying police orders, two for crossing police lines, one for simple assault, three for assaulting a police officer and one for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon. In that last instance, a demonstrator, after the crowd had been pushed out on to K Street, lobbed a brick at an officer’s face. The officer was taken to a hospital and treated for facial injuries before being released, Schlosser said.