SEATTLE — The Seattle Police Department, with help from Bellevue police and the FBI, swept into the Seattle protest zone early Wednesday with heavily equipped officers and tactical vehicles to clear out the area and arrest people who remained there.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an executive order at 9:28 p.m. Tuesday, declaring “gathering in this area an unlawful assembly requiring immediate action from city agencies, including the Police Department.”

Police moved in around 5 a.m., issuing dispersal orders for “anyone who remains in the area or returns to the area.” They arrested 32 people by about 9:30 a.m., according to the department.

At least 100 police officers equipped with body armor, batons, helmets and weapons moved into the CHOP, which stands for Capitol Hill Organized Protest. Protesters backed away slowly, with some yelling, “We’ll be back.”

Protesters have occupied several blocks around Cal Anderson Park and the Police Department’s East Precinct for about three weeks in a 24/7 demonstration-slash-encampment that sprang up during the wave of national protests against police brutality and racial injustice. Seattle police left the precinct in early June after standoffs and clashes with protesters.

The area had remained relatively peaceful until the weekend of June 20, when the first of four shootings near CHOP in the span of about nine days killed 19-year-old Lorenzo Anderson and injured another man. After another shooting Monday morning killed a 16-year-old boy and injured a 14-year-old boy, Seattle police Chief Carmen Best said “enough is enough.”

“Two African American men are dead, at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter,” she said Monday.

CHOP volunteer security guards moved through the camp, helping people quickly pack and remove their things before a slowly oncoming line of police arrived, said demonstrator Janene Karnista Hampton, a member of the Syilx People who goes by Karnista.

Karnista and her companion, Dr. Whitefeather, who is Apache and Cheyenne, spent the early morning blessing both police and protesters, burning sage and praying for everyone to get out of the area without violence.

“Everyone has done a good job here because everyone is out safe,” she said. “But it will come back. This is not going away. We’re still fighting for justice.”

Police reported people were overturning portable toilets as officers swept the area and tore down tents.

“This order, and our police response, comes after weeks of violence in and around the Capitol Hill Occupied Protests Zone, including four shootings, resulting in multiple injuries and the deaths of two teenagers,” Best said in a statement. She was watching Wednesday morning from a staging area at the fire station on 13th Avenue and East Pine Street.

Fourteen people were booked into the King County Jail between 4:30 and 10 a.m., according to jail logs. Although it was not immediately clear if all 14 had been arrested at CHOP, the jail roster indicated most of them were booked on suspicion of obstruction, assault or —most commonly —failure to disperse.

Police said anyone seeking to leave the area without getting arrested could do so through the south end of the zone, toward Pike Street.

One protester who has been helping out at the camp at Cal Anderson for several weeks estimated as many as 50 people living homeless have been staying at the park, or nearby in cars or other temporary arrangements. The protester, who asked not to be identified, described the unhoused population as diverse, ranging from people with mental health issues to people who were unhoused by choice “because it’s just simpler.”

He said CHOP community members had been actively helping many of the homeless occupants stay fed and safe and often served as informal social workers when they were in distress. He said the demonstrators would continue to assist people without homes if they were swept from the park by the city.

“The community is definitely stepping up to help them as much as possible,” he said.

A man named Jay, who is homeless and stayed at the encampment in Cal Anderson Park for two weeks, said he was sorry to leave.

“Other places are sketchy, but I felt safe here,” he said. “This place was based on respect. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”

Some protesters erected a small barricade of trash bags and cans, which police removed to make way for an armored vehicle and a line of officers.

A demonstrator with a megaphone —Harry “Rick” Hearns, who normally works as a private security guard and has been a regular at CHOP —exhorted everyone to stay calm and “don’t mess this up for Black Lives Matter!”

“We’ve made history here! You’re doing great!” Hearns shouted. “Everybody out. We’ll get another place. Don’t taunt the officers. Show them that the Black race is peaceful. The whole world can see us!”

Demonstrator David Lewis, who has been an organizer at CHOP, said the next step was to regroup and reorganize.

“We are putting the O back in CHOP: organize,” he said. “I want people to remember that CHOP was a movement that started on Capitol Hill. It was never about the location; it was about the movement.”

Neighbor Amy Hagopian said she is sorry to see the experiment at CHOP end.

“I’ve been going to the evening meetings watching them make decisions and practice democracy,” she said.

Faizel Khan, who owns Cafe Argento as well as some other commercial real estate at 12th Avenue and East Olive Street, said CHOP quickly got out of hand and “has not been about Black lives since day two.”

Khan has joined other business owners in suing the city over its handling of CHOP. Though he’s faced property damage and a drop in business, Khan refused to close the cafe.

“Once you board up, they own you,” he said. “I’m so glad this is over.”

Sophia Lee, who has lived for four years on 12th Avenue, half a block south of CHOP, said she had mixed feelings about the 24/7 protest.

“I support the message, but I feel like how the city reacted was not great and it has received a lot of negative press nationwide,” Lee said, adding that the city shouldn’t blame recent violence on the demonstrators.

Lee said the protest itself wasn’t a nuisance to her but she noticed it attracted white supremacists and loud Christian evangelists who “were disruptive and competitive. That was one of problems with CHOP: It became a target.”

The sweep comes one day after police and other city employees removed some barriers at CHOP with heavy equipment at 10th Avenue and East Pine Street, only to see protesters erect their own makeshift barricade as a replacement within an hour. That back-and-forth over barriers Tuesday was the latest episode in a weekslong stalemate between the city and protesters.

In a 7 a.m. briefing Wednesday, Best said she supports peaceful demonstrations and supports the Black Lives Matter movement but that she and the department couldn’t allow CHOP to continue.

“Our job is to protect and serve the community,” she said. “Our job is to support peaceful demonstrations, but what has happened here on these streets over the last two weeks is lawless, and it’s brutal, and bottom line, it is simply unacceptable.”

Best said she will do the work of “re-envisioning public safety” in Seattle with community groups, the Community Police Commission, the department’s Office of Police Accountability and the city’s Office of Inspector General.

The SPD’s early morning operation was assisted by the Bellevue Police Department and local FBI, Best said.

Police have not yet returned to the East Precinct, Best said, adding that precincts across the city had additional staffing Wednesday. Seattle police detective Mark Jamieson said they planned to get officers back into the East Precinct “as soon as possible.”

“The first steps are to assess the East Precinct and remove the barricades around it,” he said.

As they moved in on CHOP around 5 a.m. Wednesday, Seattle police posted a nearly four-minute video on the department’s blotter and to YouTube depicting violence that has occurred in the area.

The video, titled “Violence in the C.H.O.P.,” is a series of clips showing people fleeing from gunfire, fights and people walking with rifles. The text below the video on YouTube mentions Durkan’s proclamation regarding CHOP and says it is an “open-source video of violent incidents in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) zone.”

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has been active in some of the protests. She opened City Hall to protesters on June 9 and took part in a Black Lives Matter march to Durkan’s home on Sunday. Durkan cited these and other actions in a letter Tuesday asking the council to investigate Sawant.

In her first tweet since police moved into the CHOP on Wednesday, Sawant wrote at 8:43 a.m.: “The best response to corporate Mayor Durkan’s attacks on movements is for the people to demand City Council deliver on their publicly-made promises to pass an Amazon Tax TODAY to fund affordable housing, without delays or watering down.”

The council’s budget committee is poised to vote as early as Wednesday to establish a tax on big businesses, championed by Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, that could underwrite $86 million in coronavirus relief this year and that could raise as much as $200 million per year in the long term for affordable housing, business assistance and community development.