The Occupy Wall Street movement drew thousands to protests around the country, but as participants dwindle, and criminal activity and conflicts with police increase, what will come of the movement?

Police in riot gear swept into a lower Manhattan park early Tuesday morning to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters. They told demonstrators that after city workers clean the park they can come back, but without the tents, sleeping bags, and tarps.

Similar moves have shut down camps in Oakland and Portland. Will that happen in Seattle, and what would a clear-out mean to protesters here?

Occupy Seattle protester Martin Chapman, 27, says they need the camp to stay in the public consciousness.

"We have to be visible," Chapman said. "Visibility is part of the top five things that are necessary for this to happen."

Seattle Central Community College has asked the demonstrators to leave because of crime, vandalism, and drug use. The school is looking for a legal way to move them out.

For people like Chapman, who have dedicated themselves to the movement, it is hard to watch it threatened from within, because there was a time when Occupy showed glimmers of a successful revolution.

Word of the "99 percent" spread from city to city, country to country. But the message was quickly diluted by hangers-on who brought a criminal element; people who joined the movement, but never really understood or believed in it.

"There are individuals like that. I know who they are," Chapman said. "The thing is we have to incentivize folks to stay and be part of it, we can't just kick them out. We can't just say, you're not part of it because you're not working or you're not contributing. We have to show folks, listen, here's how we can incentivize your contribution - you want to eat, help clean up. You want a blanket, can you paint something for me?"

But it's criminal activity that's causing camps like the one in Portland to be torn down. And without a place to Occupy, it's hard to have an Occupy movement.

"So far, the spaces have been very, very key," said Peter Bohmer, a professor at Evergreen State College. He's dedicated his life to the type of social change Occupy set out to make. Although he agrees with everything the movement stands for, he's not sure that it can survive without a physical location. "Having a physical space, and showing that people are willing to stay there and use it hopefully to educate, to demonstrate, to occupy other places, I think is a central aspect to this movement today."

Bohmer believes without shelter, the movement will likely come to an end during the winter, but believes it could reemerge in the spring in different forms.

Losing the Seattle camp, and the impact it would have on the movement is something protesters don't like to think about.

"There's no 'if' we get kicked out of here. There's no 'when' we get kicked out of here," Chapman said. "There's nowhere else but here."

It seems for Chapman, the Occupy movement literally lives in those tents; in that camp. If it's torn down, so is everything he believes the Occupy movement could have become.

Brandi Kruse, 97.3 KIRO FM

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• Seattle Central Community College wants Occupy demonstrators to leave