Los Angeles police and a protester face off outside the Staples Center on Wednesday evening. (Stefan Zaklin for USN&WR)

Cops 1, Protesters 0.

That seems to be the final score on the last day of the Democratic National Convention. After four days of marches, rallies, speeches, a few outbreaks of violence, and nearly 200 arrests, protesters are folding their banners and heading home. A rally Thursday morning against Citibank to protest its alleged dealings with private prison companies and environmental polluters drew some 500 well-behaved folks. Flanked by the same massive police presence that has marked their every move, the protesters listened to speeches and then marched on the sidewalk (they didn't have a permit to walk the streets) a few blocks to Citibank Center. "Guide right! Let 'em through!" shouted a police sergeant to his officers. Protesters put on skits, ran with flags through the plaza, banged drums, and chanted anti-corporate greed slogans for about 20 minutes before returning to Pershing Square.

"Most of them have been peaceful," said Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Richard Roupoli. "Organizers contact us and tell us what their plan is, and a lot of them have their own security people and monitors. They're seeking us out, because the vast majority have issues they want to express–they don't want to provoke."

A group of young anarchists, clad in black, declined to answer questions but agreed to write down their mission. Police and rally organizers have blamed anarchists for instigating violent incidents during the week. Not so, one young man wrote in a reporter's notebook: "The media has always lied about the anarchists and the things for which we stand. Anarchy does not equal chaos!!! We are nonviolent and nonconfrontational. We stand against all hierarchy and hence want to peacefully join the demonstrators. If forced, we will defend ourselves, but we will not and have not initiated violence. The media simply carries on villainizing the youth and serving their corporate masters. Fact: Just about all media is as of now owned by only six corporations. This number has been shrinking since the 1970s."

So what was all the noise about in L.A.–and in Philadelphia earlier this month at the Republican National Convention? Depends whom you ask. David Redfeather, for example, who says he is a former Marine officer and a Cherokee Indian, came to support American Indian issues. His partner at the information table in Pershing Square, Danila Oder, opposes genetically altered food. "We want justice and no more bs," said Redfeather. But Oder confessed that "it was much more clear in the '60s–civil rights and against the [Vietnam] war."

Steve Kretzmann of Amazon Watch, who has been at all four major protest events over the past 9 months (the conventions, as well as the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and the World Bank and IMF confab in Washington, D.C.), thinks the root cause is "abuse of corporate power and corporate power in politics." But he concedes that "the movement is going to have to figure out where we go with it."

Next on the protest agenda: September in Prague for a World Bank meeting. Says Kretzmann: "Beyond that I don't know."