San Francisco police arrested 95 people, including three minors, after protesters took over a Bank of America branch Wednesday afternoon.

About 100 demonstrators filled the branch at 50 California St. in San Francisco as part of a march to protest cuts to public education, while several hundred others crowded the street outside the bank.

Some protesters set up a tent on the bank floor. Others stood on furniture, including the loan officer's desk, stamping their feet and chanting, “You broke it, you bought it, the bailout is bullshit.”

A banner spread out on the floor of the branch read, “Seize the banks, end the dictatorship of the 1 percent.”

Protesters told a bank employee they wanted to speak with Monica Lozano, a member of the University of California Board of Regents who is also on the board of Bank of America.

The bank employee, who was wearing a suit and tie, told the group, “I need you guys to please leave.”

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At about 2:45 p.m., approximately 20 police officers dressed in riot gear entered the branch, while roughly 40 more arrived and stood outside.

Sgt. Michael Andraychak, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said that when the officers who were outside attempted to enter the bank, a group of protesters surged forward, pinning a lieutenant in a doorway and several other officers against the bank's windows.

Protesters threw bottles at officers, shouted "Get the police," and attempted to grab the officers' batons, Andraychak said. At least one officer said protesters attempted unsuccessfully to take her gun.

Andraychak called the actions "an obvious and deliberate attempt" to block the police from entering the building.

The officers responded with batons, striking several protesters, Andraychak said. The officers who were trapped succeeded in freeing themselves, and no arrests were made in that confrontation.

After police entered the bank, several dozen protesters sat on the floor and waited to be arrested. Others left the building and continued marching with the main protest group to the State Building at 455 Golden Gate Ave. for a planned "People's Assembly for Public Education."

By 4 p.m., police had begun arresting protesters in the bank one by one, binding their wrists with plastic handcuffs and leading them to a San Francisco Sheriff's Department bus waiting outside. Protesters who had sat inside the tent were the last to be arrested, and left peacefully.

Because the bank is a private business that is open to the public, the bank's manager had to sign a citizen's arrest form before the police could take action. The adults who were arrested were transported to county jail, issued misdemeanor citations for trespassing, and released.

The march was organized by ReFund California, a coalition of labor groups, in part to protest the cancellation of the UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco this week.

According to the regents, the meeting was canceled because of fears that violent protests would occur.

"The 1 percent on the Board of Regents cancelled their meeting because we demanded they do the people's business," read a statement posted on the Occupy SF website about the march.

"So now we're going to where they do Wall Street's business," the statement read.

At 1:30 p.m., about half an hour after the march began, the protesters sat down on Battery Street between Pacific Avenue and Broadway, blocking traffic. Some chanted, "Education must be free. No cuts, no peace."

Elise Youn, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said one of the aims of the march was to "make the connection" between the business interests of certain UC regents and their work on the board.

The marchers were focusing on two regents in addition to Lozano: Richard Blum, the chairman of Blum Capital Partners who is married to Sen. Dianne Feinstein; and George Marcus, who heads a national commercial real estate brokerage firm.

Marchers included a number of students and members of public-sector unions.

The demonstration coincided with a meeting of the California State University's Board of Trustees, who voted 9-6 to increase next year's tuition $498 to $5,970. That meeting, in Long Beach, was disrupted by protesters who stormed into the meeting room, shattering a glass door, the LA Times reported.

Nicole Stefanko, 41, a literacy tutor who was marching in San Francisco, said the fee increase "violates the principle of the public university system. It’s supposed to be free.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find the next geniuses only among the children of the 1 percent," she said. "You need to cast a much wider net.” 

Simone Cardona, 19, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said, "Money could be put into education instead of other things. There’s no sense to saying there’s not money. There is money for education."

The Bay City News Service, Erik Verduzco and Zoe Corneli contributed to this report.