With only a wilting line of yellow tape separating them from law enforcement officers, a staunch crowd of more than 100 stared down the barricade at First and Broadway, one block from Solidarity Park, minutes before midnight Tuesday.

The congregation did not deplete but doubled as the hours passed, with many migrating from protest areas north and south of City Hall; others were Downtown residents—artists, musicians, members of the creative class who wanted to watch a movement unfold.

But for an LA event requiring media credentials, one obligatory component was missing—celebrity.

As an Angeleno, it’s ingrained in you that whenever a mob forms, it’s for a movie shoot, a red carpet event or an A-list actor leaving a Starbucks on the West Side. More streets close for a Clint Eastwood film opening at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre than for a visit from President Obama.

But Tuesday night, and well into the dark hours Wednesday morning, the homemade banners dotting the street were not sycophantical but political: Save Mother Earth Now. Stop the 1%.

The catcalls were not directed at tuxedoed entertainers, but at the stone-faced officers patrolling the edge of the intersection.

“How’s that overtime?” One man sneered.

Another, over his portable loudspeaker, chided: “There are other ways to make a living.”

And if there was a public figure to be addressed that night, it was Mayor Villaraigosa, who, saddled with the city’s high deficit and his self-absorbed, image-over-public policy persona, suffers from a sinking approval rating.

“Villaraigosa should be fired. There could have been communication. This could have been peaceful,” said the loudspeaker man, eliciting applause between sentences. “But it’s not peaceful in the middle of the night. It’s not about safety. If it was, this would’ve been done in daylight. It’s sneaky.”

Armed with words rather than weapons, the protesters at First and Broadway—the last Occupy LA street demonstration to be forcefully dispersed—were communicative and peaceful, yet displayed a relentless stamina.

Of course, there were the requisite crazies, which is expected of Downtown LA. Bearded homeless men, presumably visiting from nearby Skid Row, pushed shopping carts and yelled about the “fucking Nazis.” In most circumstances, they would have been ignored or openly mocked, but instead, people nodded to them in approval.

Several chopper-style motorcycles, channeling Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, gathered on Hill Street; one beige, vintage bike blasted a blues-y version of “America the Beautiful,” and bystanders sang along.

Above it all was a bohemian Uncle Sam, perched on a guillotine with an over-size, cut-up credit card as the blade.

But the man of the evening pranced around the scene in a soiled fireman’s uniform, waving a painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. When he got hold of a megaphone, however, and spewed how the CIA had “snipers pointed at him right this second,” he was—quite uncharacteristically—hushed by the crowd, which feared he would become the face of the raid, and their city.

Perhaps one of the most tame encampments in the nation, Occupy LA was tarnished by the media’s selective coverage of its participants. Repeated reports qualified them as either hippies or homeless, uninformed or mentally ill. An LA Times post the morning of the raid included a sole interview with a meth addict, who mused about his drug use rather than the political movement at hand.

Sure, there was the scent of marijuana in the air and a majority of the Park residents who chose to leave peacefully—crossing the intersection with their hands up in surrender but not defeat—were young 20-somethings donning dreadlocks and hoodies. Some were Anarchists, while others were simply an emerging 21st century counterculture oft-ridiculed by their business-suited peers.

To people like my parents, the Baby Boomers, they were deadbeats, with no place to go before this and sure of hell no place to go now. One young male refugee, who borrowed my phone to contact his girlfriend, said he left before the forceful eviction because he couldn’t “afford another arrest.”

As we watched the police barricade push forward, an older man echoed his comment: “I don’t think most of these people want to be arrested.” It was evident—no one in this assembly was there just to be another number in the system.

And they made sure of it.

Once the flood of shielded officers entered Solidarity Park, demonstrators did their best to keep each other informed, alerts rippling through the scene like a zealous game of Telephone.

A woman at the frontline, perhaps receiving information via an inside correspondent, provided updates every five minutes. Surrounded by about 20 protesters, they shouted her updates to those hovering along the sidewalk like a Greek chorus.

“Police have declared an unlawful assembly in a 2-block radius of City Hall,” she said at around 12:20 a.m, and the chorus repeated. “They are planning to come in from the back. Keep your eyes behind you and make sure there’s an exit.”

But the crowd remained, perhaps out of conviction, or the chance to be seen in a city defined by its glass windshields and movie studios that mimic citadels. Because, as the protesters reminded officers, “The world is watching.”

Except, at First and Broadway, no one was watching. Neither were they at First and Hill, nor Hill and Second. As rambling as the loudspeaker man was throughout the night, he uncovered the thesis of the Occupy LA raid: It was sneaky not only for its late hour, but for the fact that it was, well, Downtown LA.

Los Angeles is a city without a core and therefore, by geographical nature, a tough city in which to stage a protest. Downtown is hardly a high-traffic area, especially when compared to the Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire or coastal sections, and its schizophrenic layout makes it a neighborhood untraveled by a majority of Angelenos—particularly the targeted 1%, who live, work and recreation on the city’s posh West Side.

During the day, Downtown is a steady pattern of wealth and destitution: For every two blocks of niche restaurants and buzzing office buildings, there’s two more of dilapidated storefronts and uneasy solitude.

At night, it’s practically apocalyptic. A well-lighted wasteland where laws fall by wayside.

A No Man’s Land ignored by mainstream media outlets, such as the LA Times, which failed to include in its chart of police formations the kettling that occurred until 3 a.m. Wednesday between Broadway and Hill streets.

Although the location of Solidarity Park might have been an overall detriment for Occupy LA, the backdrop of Downtown energized the First and Broadway protesters. It truly was us versus them, those chants of “Protect and serve!” and “Whose street? Our street!” carrying a stronger, more defiant tune.

The officers were protecting the lawn; the protesters were protecting their fellow Angelenos and the streets in which they were raised—streets that, despite attempts at gentrification and a promise of commerce, have fallen into disarray—because no one else would.

“It makes you wonder who’s really benefitting from this,” said a fervid Occupy supporter. “Because if you push the button long and hard enough, people are going to snap.”

The snapping occurred around 1 a.m. when a protester received notice of a grassroots raid unfolding at Second and Alameda: A group blocked a police bus and needed reinforcement. About 50 protesters rushed to Second, pushing past the District Safety guards watching helplessly from their parked bikes.

Forty minutes later, when a police truck flanked by a swelling unit of officers closed in at First and Broadway, ordering a dispersal, protesters barked directions and advice.

“They can’t touch you. Stay calm. Try to stick together,” one woman said to a friend.

A man wearing a gas mask addressed those huddled on the sidewalk: “If you don’t want to get arrested, then I suggest you scoot up.”

It took the unit nearly an hour to force the crowd halfway-up First. There, the man in the fireman uniform led protesters in creating a citizen’s barricade of sorts—one by one, they lifted the road blocks from the intersection of First and Hill and placed them before the officers.

A quiet tension hung over the crowd as the unit took several steps back—a standstill, which fooled some into believing we won. But as a cordon swarmed in from the north, the other, from the west, pummeled the make-shift barricade and charged after protesters.

Those remaining grabbed strangers’ hands, glanced over shoulders and warned others about entering the 2nd Street Tunnel as they ran south on Hill, away from the kettle. While Black Friday shoppers push, pepper spray and trample others to death, not one person shoved, nor did one refuse to point out an escape route. Solidarity Park might have been destroyed, but that solidarity was not all lost.

For one night, this was the face of Angelenos: The residents not plastering tabloids, but those who slip into obscurity in the sprawling metropolis’ working-class neighborhoods.

They, however, do not want to rest in this obscurity much longer.

“What do we do now?” A man asked his friend once they made it through the last barricade at Second and Hill.

His friend replied, “Try not to get arrested and come back tomorrow.”