Yesterday, police violently arrested five people at a nonviolent direct action at the regional Bank of America headquarters in downtown Asheville.
Despite severe police surveillance and scare tactics during the Southeast Climate Action Convergence and an unprecedented police presence including an estimated 50 in riot gear, the action was completely non-violent. Those arrested were locked down inside the building, while supporters rallied outside wearing polar bear and canary costumes to represent non-human victims of environmental devastation. Reportedly, the Asheville Police Department responded by repeatedly using high voltage electric shock devices (tasers) on the defenseless protesters locked down.
Four of the activists are being held for an undisclosed period of time. Their bail is set at $1000 each, $4000 in total. The four were brutally arrested yesterday during a nonviolent direct action at the regional Bank of America headquarters in downtown Asheville after the Southeast Convergence for Climate Action (for more info click here).
During the demonstration, the four entered the bank to engage with the customers about where Bank of America is investing their money and demand that bank of America stop funding coal projects. Between 2005 and 2007, Bank of America facilitated nearly $1 billion in loans to Massey Energy and Arch Coal, two of the largest companies responsible for the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.
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One simple solution is to federally mandate aluminum can deposit levies (5 or 10 cents). This alone would drop *global* GHG emissions by about 0.03% annually.
Another is to take all the oil tax credits and shift them over to manufacturing wind turbines. Wind turbine blades are aerospace industry products. Seems a natural military-industrial complex bedfellow.
Now, while the USA still has a huge basic R+D comparitive advantage over the entire developing world, it would make sense to ramp up solid-state hydrogen storage R+D at American Universities and corporate chemistry labs. A solid-state hydrogen storage economy is inevitable if modern civilization is to survive through this century. The USA-centric hedgemony and survival solutions are much preferable to the hedgemony and Roman Empire solutions.
I just sent them $20.
I don’t recall this being on any newscasts and I live in the Triangle area of North Carolina. Any videos out there of thess non-violent protestors getting tased? I would be especially interested in looking at them………thx.
this is dumb, you basically said in your statement exactally what the law defines trespassing as. If they were peacefully protesting, they have no right to do so inside the bank. APD was in the right by arresting them. Your not protesting anything, your terrorizing the people who work at that bank. Tasers aren’t against the law, they’ve been in use by law enforcement for years and are non-lethal. In the cases where they were lethal, there was contributing health factors in those people which lead to their death not the taser. Next time try reporting the facts for a change.