UPDATE: Video of today’s action in DC, including the cuddle blockade!
UPDATE: According to those on the ground, around 50 blockaders marched to McKenna, Long and Aldridge on K Street in solidarity with the blockade in Texas. McKenna, Long and Aldridge is one of the law firms lobbying for TransCanada and the Keystone XL pipeline.
Here’s a report from DC Indymedia:
This protest was in solidarity with the Tar Sands Blockade in Texas, on the 43 day of the blockade. It was in solidarity with the Lakota people defending their lands from Keystone XL pipeline itself, and with all Native people resisting the tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada, It was also in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street folks bottom-lining Hurricane Sandy relief in NY, and the people who were hit by this climate-change driven storm.
The entire building targetted by the protest bears McKenna, Long and Ostridge’s name, and they have an office on the first floor, accessable from the lobby. The civil disobediance blockade was across that locked doorway inside the building.
Originally protesters controlled the doors from the inside as a precaution against anyone being trapped if security locked the doors. The cops were very slow to arrive,
When cops had pushed enough protesters out of the building to get control of the doors, security locked them from the inside, violating DC fire codes. In a real emergency these doors will yield to being body-slammed from the inside if they work the same way as the doors at Bechtel, but that’s still a fire code violation.
When more cops showed up to arrest the 4 people sitting down(and escort out the two standing behing them with the banner), protesters set an secondary, arm-locked blockade across the front doors to delay the police.
________________________________________________________________________________________
This morning dozens of protesters marched through the streets of Washington D.C. and blockaded the doors to the TransCanada lobby firm in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade. The crowd blockaded the door chanting: “No pipeline, No tar sands, No destruction of indigenous lands!”
Police were quick to arrive at the scene and arrested several protesters. Today’s action demonstrates the growing grassroots movement across North America to prevent destruction from toxic tar sands pipelines.
For live updates follow #NoKXL and @KXLBlockade on twitter and the live stream from @occuypyeye.
