`Occupy’ activists stage protests in San Francisco

Hundreds of `Occupy' activists engaged the San Francisco police and stormed a vacant hotel in the city yesterday ending a day of protests across the city's financial district. They also held separate anti-Wall Street rallies at federal courthouses across the country.

The rallies were seen as a bid by the Occupy Wall Street movement to re-energise protests against economic inequities and excesses of the US financial system. The action comes weeks after demonstrators were evicted from tent camps in a coordinated state action nationwide.

The protestors marched to the Cathedral Hill Hotel in San Francisco's upscale Pacific Heights neighbourhood chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "Cops go home!"

The protesters were met by a posse of police in riot gear who had set up barricades at the front entrance to the U-shaped multi-storied hotel complex sprawling across an entire city block.

The crowd surged forward in an attempt to clear their way by removing the barriers and grappled with the police, who poked the protesters with batons and doused them with pepper spray, which forced them to retreat. According to the police, the demonstrators hurled rocks, bottles and bricks at them, which resulted in two officers suffering minor injuries.

Meanwhile, at least 18 people were arrested in another protest in the city when demonstrators attempted to shut down Wells Fargo & Co's headquarters in the financial district, which they called Wall Street West.