View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

A bastion of the contemporary Occupy movement is no more. A foreclosed house dubbed Fort Hernandez was cleared out by sheriff's deputies early this morning, observers report.

The eviction after a four-month sit-in at the Hernandez family home in Van Nuys was reported about 4:30 a.m. The eviction of 18 people, including four to six family members and 12 occupiers, and 5 dogs went smoothly, with no arrests or injuries.

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department carried out the eviction with armored vehicles and nearly 100 police personnel.

Dump trucks were brought in to break down the encampment.

“They were living in tents and hadn’t paid the mortgage for about 4 years,” according to L.A. Co. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Occupiers fed up with big-bank foreclosures, particularly in light of the federal bailout in 2008, upheld Fort Hernandez as a symbol since late August.

They say there are more empty homes in the same Van Nuys neighborhood than there are homeless.

A Bank of America spokesperson said, “We have made multiple attempts to offer Mr. Hernandez assistance since he stopped making payments in 2008. Prior to foreclosure, we requested financial documents over a 6-month period, but Mr. Hernandez never submitted the necessary documentation for us to complete our review.”

Hernandez said his only hope is to fight the bank in court.

On November 30th last year around 300 protesters were arrested at the Los Angeles City Hall after being camped out in the vicinity for over two months. An estimated 1,400 police officers showed up and blazed through the encampment in what protesters are now calling a "shock and awe" attack on their rights. The movement activists have now filed a class action lawsuit for the arrests and the protesters' treatment while in custody. RT's Ramon Galindo brings the latest from Los Angeles.

This video is from a Nov. 9th, 2012 march by hundreds of supporters on several banks in Los Angeles (including Deutsche Bank, as well as Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, and Bank of America) to protest illegal foreclosures, the banks' greed, and a corrupt system built to enrich the wealth of a few at the expense of the 99%. The video features interviews and speeches from Occupy activists from southern California, and members of other groups including Occupy The Hood, the American Indian Movement, and LA residents facing foreclosure and homelessness.

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

For Richard Castaldo, the fight to keep his home out of foreclosure is only the latest in a life that has been full of extraordinary challenges. When he was 17, Castaldo became one of the first students shot during the Columbine High School massacre. Now, he's turned to Occupy Los Angeles to overcome this latest obstacle:

Richard Castaldo has a bullet permanently lodged in his spine from when, at 17 years old, he was shot eight times by two peers at Columbine High School.

Castaldo and his friend, Rachel Scott, were sitting outside during their lunch break on April 20, 1999, when fellow students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began shooting. Richard and Rachel were the first students hit.

“They shot us both pretty much at the same time. It was all kind of one big spray,” Castaldo said.

He remembers waiting, bleeding for more than half an hour. Before help could arrive, Klebold and Harris returned.

“During that time I heard Rachel crying, and they came back and shot her in the head and I knew she was dead after that,” Castaldo said.

Confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life as a result of the shooting, Richard moved to Los Angeles five years ago to pursue a career in music, only to fall behind on mortgage payments for his condo.Now he hopes Occupy Los Angeles can help him find a way to stay in the city he now calls home.

“I feel like they’re really the only group that doesn’t have an ulterior motive,” said Castaldo, who admits he “should have known better” than to believe the value of his condominium would go up. Roughly 36,000 California housing units received a foreclosure filing in October, according to RealtyTrac.

Time may be running out for Castaldo, as the condo is set to be sold at auction on December 6. But given other successes Occupy groups have had saving homeowners threatened by foreclosure, he may still stand a chance. Over the summer, Occupy Our Homes -- an offshoot of the Occupy movement -- saved the home of a Minneapolis woman and helped another resident of that city resist foreclosure in the same month.

There's also The Home Defender's League who are quite successful at what they do, and they also have quite a few partner organizations -- some affiliated with the Occupy movement, some not -- even in California.

Richard won't be alone in this fight, and he's in good hands.

I'll update with any new developments.

Foreclosure fraud is on the rise in California and Occupy Los Angeles activists say elected officials are doing nothing to stop it. California had the nation's highest foreclosure rate this summer, contributing to at least two major cities seeking bankruptcy protection. The state attorney general has promised relief but homeowners have yet to see it.

Although LAPD promised to arrest chalk vandals once again, a party atmosphere prevailed Thursday night at downtown Los Angeles' Art Walk.

Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Horace Frank, of the Central Division, said earlier in the day that his officers plan to enforce the law if they see it being broken.

"It's a violation of the law, it's vandalism, and we're going to make an arrest," he said, adding that he has received frequent emails from downtown property owners complaining about damage from chalk.

"My BlackBerry is burning up with pictures of businesses being vandalized," he said.

Odd that the LAPD hasn't shared any photographs of businesses that were vandalized with the water-soluable chalk.

Occupiers, of course, disagree that chalking is illegal and point out that other groups have gotten the city's permission to use chalk in the past. Not that the city's denial and threats could have done anything to stop their protest Thursday night. Supporters from the Bay Area, Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink were also on hand to lend their support.

At the July event, Occupy L.A. activists armed with chalk scrawled slogans and drawings on the sidewalks to to protest downtown gentrification, which has pushed out some of the area’s poorer residents. Hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department officers clashed with the protesters and fired "less-than-lethal" projectiles into the crowd. Four officers were hurt, and 15 people were arrested.

There were three members of Occupy Oakland detained, apparently because they drew the picture below with chalk:

Two of the Occupiers were released, and the other was held because of an outstanding warrant, according to Occupy sources on Twitter.

Other than that, it seems a good time was had by all, despite the heavy police presence in the area.

It seems that in Los Angeles, California, it isn't chalking that's illegal. It's the message. Participants of Chalk Walk Respond to Mayor’s Statement & Selective Enforcement here.

You can't arrest an idea.

This episode of the show reports on the Guitarmy March to New York from Philly and OWS Week correspondent Paul Talbot's violent arrest. OWS Week also covers events over in LA, the Chalk Walk event which was stormed by LAPD with many arrests and rubber bullet injuries. Also on this edition of the show we report on Fort Manning's continued demonstrations with Lee Camp's comic relief input, and Mitt Romney got it at Koch's plush beach house.

[Via]

via Occupy Los Angeles

We are occupying!!!

Join LA CAN, Occupy the Hood, Occupy Skid Row and Occupy Los Angeles at Wilshire/Hope (626 Wilshire Blvd.) at 8:30pm tonight to fight gentrification and the corrupt practices of the lobby group Central City Association. BRING TENT.

We are peacefully gathering to protest the Economic Development Meeting and the downtown 2020 plan to build new high rises, the AEG Stadium and further criminalize and push out the homeless. The CCA is the localized manifestation and microcosm of everything wrong with policy, the 1% and obsession with wealth and prestige. In this hyper-localized resistance, everyone must fight the bully in their respective backyards, as a community.

We have power in numbers and will be OCCUPYING the CCA, who monitors the public spaces of downtown with private security for the one percent. Red shirt, green shirt, purple shirt, police all working together to criminalize the homeless, communities of color and more recently, to patrol protesters in the area.

Facebook event | Twitter: @OccupyLA

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Occupy.com:

Prepare yourself for a journey through the Occupy L.A. encampment as seen through the eyes of journalist Sam Slovick, who narrates the proceedings like he's in a noir thriller. Slovick refers to the Occupy Movement as "the Civil Rights Movement on crank, the Sixties peace movement in a "V for Vendetta" mask with a blunt and the devil's defiance," and Occupy L.A. as a "largely dismissed, mostly misinterpreted orphan child of the Occupy Movement."

"Ultimately, Occupy LA was and is a relatively high functioning, reasonably organized productive community, but you won't read that in the paper," Slovick said. "That’s why I camped at City Hall for the better part of two months and shot the series. I wanted to meet the people and tell the real story of the American class war in Los Angeles."

Slovick produced this film - the first in a five-part series that aired on takepart.com in January - with the help of Slake, a highly acclaimed literary journal based in Los Angeles. "Occupy Los Angeles: Scenes From a Revolution" portrays a movement that refuses to go down without one hell of a fight.