It was a blur of batons, beatings and blood.
Police in riot gear answered the Occupy Wall Street mobilization with a display of force that overwhelmed protesters everywhere they gathered.
“I saw somebody kick the [barricade] — and all of a sudden the police kicked in and cracked his head,” a protester named Tim, 20, said after witnessing a Zuccotti Park confrontation that left a comrade bleeding profusely before he was hauled off to a police van.
“They were stepping on his face . . . They were hitting with batons. They bum-rushed him and tackled him and slammed his head down,” said the bystander. “One put his foot on the guy’s head.”
In another Zuccotti showdown, cops chased a male protester into the park. They pushed him into a flower bed. He was stomped, and his head hit the concrete edge.
He left behind a pool of blood and a boot.
“I was screaming, ‘Be peaceful, be peaceful,’ ” said Seana, 38. “And then they [police] rammed. They pushed me down, and I fell backwards — and they just kept coming at us.
“It was completely intentional; they were trying to start a riot.”
Demonstrators gathered at Zuccotti at around 7 a.m., then marched toward the New York Stock Exchange in a thwarted effort to shut it down.
The situation quickly grew tense, and cops made 60 arrests when a group of demonstrators — led by a man chanting, “Take the bull! Take the bull!” — tried to jump over some barricades.
Others protesters were cuffed and hauled off after they defied police orders to scatter and instead sat on the ground.
“My question is, how is that illegal to stand there? I got pushed and stepped on. This is the United States of America. I can walk on any sidewalk I want to,” said student Jessica Allure, 24.
One of the first people arrested was a girl who screamed, “I’m 16!” over and over before she was put in a police van.
As the doors opened to add another arrestee, the girl popped her head out and screamed again.
Protesters made their way up Broadway toward Trinity Church and later headed back to Zuccotti Park.
Chaos erupted again at around 11 a.m., when demonstrators took down police barricades.
Streaming into the park, protesters grabbed a metal barricade and started dragging it, screaming, “Whose fences? Our fences!”
Brooklyn teacher Melissa Shaw, 31, was stunned to see police officers chasing a young man through the growing melee.
“A riot cop went insane. He went running through with about 250 more cops, and they had the batons out,” she recounted. “People were trying to get them off the kid.”
“The protesters were nonviolent,” said Shaw. “Everyone inside the park was violated by the police. They were like stormtroopers. It was shocking.”
Hunter College student Olivia Hamilton watched as NYPD cops dismantled protesters’ signs and flags, using what she called “general intimidation tactics.”
Hamilton, 23, said she came downtown to protest looming tuition hikes and to support her adjunct professors, who face health-care cuts and “don’t get paid a living wage.”
“It’s been a long day,” said Shaw, the Brooklyn teacher. “The solidarity was so inspiring.
“But I don’t understand violence. Nothing is solved by violence. ”
By late Thursday, the NYPD had arrested 177 demonstrators as the horde made a brief stand in Union Square before heading back to lower Manhattan.
They gathered in Foley Square, across from the courthouses, before mobilizing at the Brooklyn Bridge for their planned grand finale.