Following the police raid on Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York, the White House said it’s up to each city to determine how to handle the demonstrations.

“The President’s position is that obviously every municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Carney said the President was “aware” from reports that protesters had been evicted early Tuesday morning from Zuccotti Park, where they had camped out for weeks.

“We would hope and want, as these decisions are made, that it balances between a long tradition of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in this country, and obviously of demonstrating and protesting, and also the very important need to maintain law and order and health and safety standards, which was obviously a concern in this case,” Carney said.