Hours after baton-wielding cops cleared Occupy Wall Street protesters and their tents from Zuccotti Park on Tuesday, a judge backed the clean sweep. They banned tents and tarps, your move protesters. hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman says that city can stop protesters from bringing camping equipment into the park.

The anti-camping rule appears “reasonable” to maintain safety and hygiene at the epicenter of the nationwide movement, Stallman wrote.

The protesters “have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park, along with their tents, structures, generators and other installations,” he wrote.

Occupy Wall Street declined to appeal the decision immediately, but it was unknown when the city would reopen the park to people without tents.

It was also unclear whether protest leaders would try to maintain Zuccotti Park as their main stage or look for another camping ground.

“It’s not over. Not by a long shot,” said Paul Russell, 33, activist from Fort Greene.

“This is a fearless group of people who are not going to be intimidated by the police or weather systems. I think this is going to empower the movement even more.”

Earlier in the day, after Zuccotti was closed, some protesters had already moved to another public space, owned by Trinity Church, at Canal St. and Sixth Ave..

They used bolt cutters to open a fenced-in area, and police swooped in and made numerous arrests. Daily News reporter Matt Lysiak was among several reporters covering the confrontation who were arrested.

Trinity said in a statement that it would not allow the demonstrators to stay overnight on church property.

At 5 p.m., demonstrators were mostly still massed around Zuccotti, where the overnight raid netted the arrest of 200 people, including Manhattan Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez.

The park was eerily clean and empty. The only people inside were employees of property owner Brookfield Properties, which
asked for the city crackdown in a Monday letter to Mayor Bloomberg
.

About 50 people had been allowed back in at 8:10 a.m. —
before the NYPD closed the park again until t
he fast-developing
legal issues could be
sorted out.

“Whose park? Our park!” protesters chanted. “They stole our freaking tents from the 99%!”

“That was my home,” said Shane Stoops, 23, an occupier from Seattle who said he had been at Zuccotti since the dawn of the protest Sept. 17.

“You see all those garbage trucks? That’s where I live now. They took my life

… all my clothes, my four-man tent and mattress, all of my books and three years of drawings.”

Bloomberg said it was his call to move in on the protesters following reports of lawlessness and the injury of an EMS worker trying to assist a mentally ill man.

“The final decision to act was mine, and mine alone,” he said at a morning press conference.

“We could not wait for someone in the park to get killed or injure another person before acting.”

He said the city planned all along
to let the anti-greed movement return to Zuccotti
as soon as it was cleaned — without the trappings of the tent city.

But
lawyers for Occupy Wall Street got Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings, a former ACLU lawyer,
to sign an order at 6:30 a.m.
that explicitly said they should be allowed in with “tents and other property.”

“We called her. She came and signed the papers,” said lawyer Daniel Alterman, refusing to say why they zeroed in on Billings.

“They trampled on the Constitution. They tossed it in the garbage,” he added, likening the mayor to “a small rodent.”

A hearing on the temporary order was held before Justice Michael Stallman, who was chosen at random by computer to handle the case.

The city argued that Zuccotti had become a threat to public safety, rife with crime and fire hazards. The protesters said banning tents would infringe upon their First Amendment rights.

“The power of this symbolic speech is that it’s a 24-hour occupation. This conveys a special message,” said OWS lawyer Allan Levine.

City officials said if they prevailed in court, the plan was to stop anyone from entering the park with tents or tarps.

“They will not be allowed to lie down,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

DN