Phil Neel is one of two protesters who stayed inside City Hall this afternoon to get arrested after a crowd of Occupy Seattle protesters left the building. And frankly, he’s kind of annoyed that so many comrades bailed while he and his friend Carson were handcuffed, booked into King County jail, and left for hours in holding cells.

“A lot of the centrist [protesters] made a last-minute decision to leave,” Neel says. Carson remains locked up, but Neel was released from jail and he’s frustrated that others didn’t stick to their plans for civil disobedience. “Every time we have had the numbers, moderates have said, ‘Now is not the time to get arrested, we should wait until tomorrow.’” That was the story when protesters blocked Fourth Avenue and Pine Street last Saturday, when two people were arrested after most of the group moved to the sidewalk, he laments. “It’s like the sad fat kid at the pool who puts his toe in the water, but decides it’s too cold to get in.”

In jail, Neel says the food sucked. “There was a shitty ham sandwich and a piece of processed cheese. I’m vegetarian, so I only had an apple.”

Asked about their collective willingness to get arrested tonight, spokeswoman Maria Guillen said that some were, but a lot of people would simply stand by "to observe what police are going to do.” The next big test is on Saturday. They intend to try setting up 500 tents in Westlake Park, part of a national day of action, the general assembly voted this evening.

Given their stern warning from police earlier today, many Occupiers were bracing for police to make as many arrests as they need to end the Westlake occupation tonight. Police made a strong showing, for sure, charging into the crowd using their bicycles as rolling barricades. Several officers made a channel of bikes to take two protesters out of the crowd in handcuffs along with a yellow REI tent. Inexplicably, the cadre and their fleet of vehicles vanished at the stroke of 11:00 p.m., just as TV news reporters were set to deliver on-the-scene coverage for the late-night broadcast. Some Occupiers speculate that the 20 or so police underestimated the crowd’s size and unruliness, so they just backed out. Other theories abound: Perhaps the cops plan to return with more police any moment, maybe they are waiting to clear the park until much later in the evening when the crowd dwindles, or maybe this is part of an interminable nightly cycle of unpredictable menace. There are still chants about bank corruption and regressive taxation and economic injustice, but it's mostly anti-city-establishment talk that consumes the rhetoric. It's become a grand war just to hold the park.

The 100 protesters who remain tonight appear exhausted and divided—split between distinct factions of hardcore organizers managing the infrastructure who see a move to City Hall as inevitable and revolutionary youth who refuse to compromise—as they hunker down late this evening on top of tarps, under blankets, and in sleeping bags. The porta-potties are overflowing; what appears to be a river of excrement and piss flows toward a drain about 20 feet north. The drums and maracas never stop.

When Neel was released, he headed straight to the protest to discover that the general assembly voted to stay put in Westlake—despite yesterday’s vote to accept Mayor Mike McGinn’s invitation to move to City Hall. “I was happy about the decision to stay at Westlake,” he says. “We went to City Hall to tell Mike McGinn that we refused his offer. The problem with City Hall is that it’s seen as capitulating to the mayor who offered it to us. To people on the further left, it looks like we’re petitioning to elected leaders. We’re about direct democracy, not petitioning to mainstream political parties.”

How long can this occupation last, tentless in the elements and sleeping on the cold granite pavers at Westlake Park? “If conditions were right, we could stay here in the long-term,” Neel says. “With teepees and yurts, we could live here throughout the winter.”