Over 250 peace activists gathered in the Pyramid Mall yesterday at Noon as part of a nationwide action in shopping malls to say no to a US war against Iraq.
Wearing mostly black and carrying signs such as "Stop war on Iraq", "Peace On Earth", and "Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace" they slowly marched single-file down the mall as atleast a half dozen local and state police gathered to help keep it peaceful.
A mall manager was less than pleased with the action. When asked what he thought about it he commented, "I don't know what all these people are doing here, but I want them to leave!". Most of his anger was directed towards the media, however, threatening several journalists with arrest if they photographed or videotaped within the mall. For this reason we could only manage to get a few shots of the march inside the mall, but the line of marchers extended as far as we could see and continued for about 45 minutes. During this time the law enforcement officers present spoke repeatedly with the mall manager, and were overheard repeatedly asking him to "calm down, sir" and assuring him that "they're leaving now".
Patrons at the mall had various mixed reactions. An angry Vietnam Veteran patron yelled to a World War 2 Veteran in the march, "Just wait until they drop a bomb on us, buddy". Another patron, while being interviewed by Kenny Ritter of the Luminary News, said she thought it was great before joining the march herself. She was not alone, many other patrons were seen joining the march as the numbers of participants continued to grow beyond our 250+ person count.
Employees at the mall were also extremely diverse in reaction. One kiosk worker commented, "They're not shopping, so they're loitering. They should be outside. There's people from all over the world here. They shouldn't force their views on me while I'm on work." At The Learning Web's kiosk, where they were wrapping gifts for shoppers, Lisa Borst exclaimed, "I think it's great what they're doing. It's amazing to see all these people, awesome holiday spirit!" Employees at other stores were overheard asking police what to do if "any of them" were to enter their store, they were directed to ask them to leave if that were to happen. Other workers stood clapping, cheering, and waving peace signs as the line progressed past them.
The march consisted of people of all ages, race, and class. Men in business suits, elderly women, several entire families marching together, and a several dozen teenagers there by themselves or with friends. Clair Stoscheck, a student at ACS, said as she got close to leaving the mall, "I only expected twenty or thirty people to be here, you know? This is amazing! I heard there's over two hundred here, and more people are joining! This is great!"
As the peace marchers left the mall they continued to snake through the parking lot to Route 13, where they stood on the sidewalk holding with their signs for close to a half hour. Atleast two State Troopers stayed close to the line of activists, parking a car at the front and end of the line, clearly unsure as to what would happen next. Cars driving past honked their horns in support, some waving peace signs or "thumbs up" to the line of peace activists. While there was surely some negetive reaction from atleast one of the hundreds of cars that drove past, I stayed with the line taking photos of it for some time and didn't hear a single negetive remark.
Then Pete Meyers announced on the bullhorn that twelve people were participating in a die-in across the street at the Army Recruiting Center and were about to be arrested. The line of peace activists moved across the street and gathered in front of the Army and Marine Corp Recruiting Center, where 11 activists had already painted themselves in blood-red paint and layed silently inside the recruiting center as two other activists, Antoinette Chen See and Danny Burns, were speaking to a recruiter inside attempting to calm him down and explain what was going on. Meanwhile, the crowd outside began singing songs including, "We Shall Overcome", "Down By the Riverside", and "Peace, Salaam, Shalom".
State Troopers arrived several minutes later, appearing noticably cautious, and joined the activists inside the recruiting center. As Fred Horan, one of the activists inside, later stated, "They were extremely courtious and polite. They didn't want to arrest anyone."
They spoke at length with the activists, allowed them to read Martin Luther King's 1967 Christmas Sermon and the Pledge of Resistance, and gave several last warnings for them to leave without being arrested. Only Fred Horan left, choosing to let us know what was happening inside the center and not wanting to be arrested himself.
During this time, several posters were taped to the glass front of the recruiting center such as pictures of Iraqi children and victims of depleted uranium, a sign reading "US Peace Center", "Stop War on Iraq", and several photos of a young Iraqi female with the text: "Are you willing to kill her to get Saddam? Stop the war on Iraq".
Finaly, a sheriff's van pulled around back which the thirteen remaining activists were very willing to climb into. The first was handcuffed, but had them removed by the Troopers before the van left. Arrested were Oona Grady
DeFlaun?, Anna Grady Flores, Anna Ritter, Marie
DeMott? Grady, Grace Ritter, Claire Grady, Peter
DeMott?, Leslie Schultz, Neil Golder, Emmy, Antoinette Chen See, Danny Burns, and Lisa Guido. There were all charged with "criminal trespass" and released shortly after. Their court appearence is Thursday January 9th, 2003 at 7pm.
According to several activists present, this is not the end of actions such as these. They will continue to preform acts of peaceful civil disobedience until the US invasion of Iraq is stopped. For more information, and to get involved yourself, contact the following organizations:
to top
