Rachel Maddow At Occupy Wall Street (PHOTOS)

Rachel Maddow journeyed down to Occupy Wall Street in the early hours of Friday morning, just as the protesters in the Lower Manhattan encampment were preparing to face off with New York City police trying to eject them from the park they have been occupying for weeks. (The protesters won their battle with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had tried to get them to leave on the grounds that the park needed cleaning. Eventually, police arrested five protesters.)

Maddow said she saw a substantial police presence, and she snapped pictures of large crowds preparing, in her words, to "defend" the encampment. Below, see a series of Maddow's tweets from the scene. She is just the latest media figure to travel to Occupy Wall Street — people ranging from Erin Burnett to Keith Olbermann to Ed Schultz to Tamron Hall have all reported from the site of the protests.