[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="499" caption="Jonathan Flanders photo of a protester who had been pepper-sprayed Dec. 22 at Occupy Albany."][/caption]Occupy Albany was removed from its location near the Capitol on Thursday, as its permit ran out. Police arrested and pepper-sprayed protesters. Fox23 News in Albany reports:

"Earlier in the day Albany Police and Department of General Services workers broke up the encampment, taking down all of the tents that had littered the park for the past several months. After that happened hundreds of protesters uprooted one, final trademark Occupy Albany Information tent intact, and paraded it around the city for hours.... protesters brought that tent back to Academy Park, set it down for a minute, and then grabbed it back up while chanting in an attempt to continue parading the yellow barn-like tent around the city. Then, without warning, protesters say Albany Police began to block the large group from moving the tent back off the Academy Park property, and onto city streets. In an instant, the peaceful protest turned to chaos, fear and violence as protesters began screaming and yelling, pushing and shoving. Within moments a cloud of pepper spray filled the air, and that's when the real panic set in. With his eyes closed due to the intense burning, Occupy Protester Bradley Russell said, 'There was an officer, a mounted policeman on horse, literally riding through the crowd, just spraying, pepper spraying indiscriminately anybody who was in the crowd in front of him, it was completely flagrant.'"

The Occupy Albany group is holding a general assembly Fri. Dec. 23 at 5:30 p.m. at Academy Park in Albany.