U.S News

MADISON, Wis. – About 200 pro-union protesters mitt the river Washington on Sunday, but personnel stood by as some hundreds of others remained in intractableness of a deadline land officials set for clearing the antiquity after an almost two-week-long sit-in.

The land authority that oversees the Washington asked the throngs of demonstrators who hit been camping discover at the Washington since Feb. 15 to yield by 4 p.m. Sun or risk arrest, locution the antiquity was in dreaded need of a cleaning. But in the hours before the deadline came and went, it was country most protesters did not intend to yield voluntarily.

One medic taught the assembling how to prepare for the worst, telling demonstrators to clutches their firsts so handlock or restraints would not cut soured the murder line and to vanish contact lenses in housing personnel sprayed anything that could harm their eyes.

Police stagnant nearby said none of that would be necessary, and Washington Police Chief physicist Tubbs said no digit had been inactive as of most 5 p.m.

He said officers would move trying to intend protesters to vacate voluntarily, but he deflected questions most whether personnel would collar demonstrators who refused to leave.

Sue Knetsch, 53, of Waupaca, said she stayed absent from the Washington throughout the nearly two weeks of protests, but that she brought her 21-year-old son, Taylor, to the Washington on Sun as an a warning in democracy. She said they due to intend inactive together.

"I just poverty him to know you crapper do something — his generation is travel around passively saying, 'It doesn't matter,'" said Knetsch, who said she had been inactive at age 17 patch complaintive the warfare War. "This is awesome. I'm a little nostalgic."

As the deadline to yield passed, hundreds of protesters on the Capitol's upper floors picked up their forcefulness level, chanting "peaceful protest," and "whose concern is this? Our house." At digit point, the assembling herb the national anthem. Many said they were embattled to be inactive — if it came to that.

At 4 p.m., organizers who commanded a mike on the connector floor urged people to rest until personnel physically broached them on the shoulder and asked them to leave. Some individuals mitt in groups of 10 or 20, patch most remained. Hundreds of another protesters watched from digit floor above, the everyday assembling place for those who designed to be arrested.

Protesters hit remained in the antiquity since Feb. 15. They are fighting governing planned by Wisconsin's newborn Republican governor, Scott Walker, that would strip unions of the right to collectively bargain.

Labor leaders and Democratic lawmakers say the calculate is witting to counteract the unions and lessen a key Democratic Party base.

But Walker argues that the Republican-backed calculate would help close a sticking $3.6 1000000000 deficit in the 2011-13 budget, and that freeing topical governments from agglomerated bargaining would provide them the needed plasticity to care with deep budget cuts.

The calculate stalled in the land Senate when its 14 Democratic lawmakers fled the land for Illinois, leaving the legislative body digit balloting short of a quorum. The Democratic senators hit vowed to meet absent from river for as daylong as it takes.

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Associated Press illustrator Apostle Condon contributed to this report.

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