Anti-Wall Street demonstrators, confronted by police in riot gear,
marched on several West Coast ports on Monday seeking to disrupt cargo
traffic and re-energize their protest movement.
By trying to hamper port operations from California to Alaska, organizers hoped to call attention to US economic inequalities, high unemployment and a financial system they complain is unfairly tilted toward the wealthy.
In Oakland, roughly 1,000 protesters chanting, "Whose ports? Our ports!" gathered at a transit station before dawn, then paraded through the streets to the city's cargo port and split into groups to try blocking the three main entrances.
Tractor-trailers en route into the facility, the nation's fourth busiest container port by volume, were backed up and idle at one entrance where protesters formed a picket line in front of police.
Two longshoremen who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity outside the gate said they would refuse to cross picket lines to get to their jobs and assumed others would follow suit.
A smaller group of demonstrators, 250 to 300, rallied at a terminal facility in the Port of Long Beach, where they scuffled in the rain with helmeted police officers who shoved t hem with batons in an effort to keep the entryway clear.
At least one protester was taken away in handcuffs after the skirmish, and demonstrators later left the area to block traffic along a main thoroughfare through the port. But as rains grew heavier and police converged in force threatening arrests, protesters began to disperse on their own.
In Portland, Oregon, motorcycle police confronted some 200 demonstrators who tried to disrupt traffic outside a terminal there. Officers later stood aside and let protesters march to the terminal entrance. But the gate was closed with a sign posted saying the terminal was shut down for security reasons.
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