Los Angeles ? When Occupy LA demonstrators recently proclaimed a downtown intersection “our street,” police watched as annoyed drivers honked horns and tried to maneuver around gyrating protesters. Officers only moved in after the third intersection takeover — telling protesters they had to quit or face arrest. The activists turned around and marched back to camp chanting slogans.

That hasn’t happened in some other cities and may not have been possible in Los Angeles that long ago.

Occupy LA, a 485-tent camp surrounding City Hall, has marched to a different beat in its drum circle after protesters, police and city officials established a relationship based on dialogues instead of dictates.

As camps in other cities degenerated into unrest that led to mass arrests, Occupy LA has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests — the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement.

City leaders are now hoping that peace can withstand what could be its biggest test. The city has given campers a 12:01 a.m. Monday to clear out of the park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a Friday afternoon news conference.

“We’ve decided to do things differently here in Los Angeles. We’ve not stared each other down across barricades and barbed wire,” the mayor said at the City Hall news conference. “From the start we’ve talked to one another and we’ve listened to each other. I trust that we can manage the closure of City Hall Park in the same spirit of cooperation.”

The announcement and the advance warning stand in stark contrast to middle-of-the-night police raids used in other cities.

“Los Angeles has had a real history of heavy-handed tactics with police,” said Richard Weinblatt, a police procedures expert and former police chief. “They’re taking a very good approach with this. It’s a good political sign.”

The hands-off strategy perhaps underscores the liberal leanings of a city that has often been known for counterculture movements. But it marks a departure for a police force still striving to emerge from the shadow of the 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Rampart corruption scandal of the late ’90s, and more recently, the 2007 crackdown at an immigrants rights rally in which demonstrators and reporters were injured with batons and rubber bullets.

This time, even before the first tent was set up on the City Hall lawn, Jim Lafferty, a lawyer who has been representing Occupy LA, said Police Chief Charlie Beck assured him protesters would be left alone if they remained peaceful. Beck promised no surprise raids would be carried out, said Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild’s Los Angeles chapter.

Elected city leaders initially embraced the campers. Villaraigosa handed out plastic ponchos one rainy day. The City Council passed a resolution to support Occupy LA. Officials found an alternate site for a farmers market that the camp displaced.

Protesters have done their part to cooperate. They’ve readily complied with health inspectors’ demands for more portable toilets, trash pickup and food sanitation. They’ve also worked to tamp down anarchist inciters in the camp who want to provoke authorities, as well as activists with hot tempers.