Lockdown at American Municipal Power

Comment: Is this the same American Municipal Power coming to our area?

The Ohio Rendezvous Action
By Sarah Azwell

Lockdown at the AMP office

Hokhokken Earth First!, the southeastern Ohio chapter of EF!, has been supporting Meigs Community Action Now (Meigs CAN) for about one year. We’ve been raising funds, writing letters and sending representatives to public hearings to formally comment against all new coal activity in Ohio. Meigs CAN has exhausted every possible avenue for polite, legal appeals to American Municipal Power (AMP Ohio) in efforts to stop a coal-fired power plant scheduled to be built in Meigs County.

This power plant is one of five proposed coal plants within a 10-mile radius of each other. Four coal plants already exist within that same area, and the community of Racine, Ohio, is already suffering from high concentrations of rare cancers, lung problems and premature death rates. Local families are also experiencing the loss of drinkable water. In these times of much flooding, wells that families have been drinking from since before the Civil War are drying up. If these coal plants and associated new mining projects are not stopped, Meigs County will become the most polluted county in the entire nation. Its people will be sacrificed for the gluttonous energy consumption of those in other states who won’t feel the effects of this concentrated pollution. It will be ecocide and the genocide of poor rural people with no recourse.

The AMP Ohio corporate office in Columbus, Ohio, was chosen as the site of this year’s post-Round River Rendezvous action because the AMP Ohio plant is the first of five proposed plants to get all of its permits in line.

Last March, students from Mountain Justice Spring Break went to the AMP corporate office in Columbus to speak directly with CEO Marc Gerken. They were very polite. Gerken refused to meet with them then, promising to do so later. A few months went by before Mountain Justice received a letter from AMP’s lawyer saying that Gerken would not be meeting with them after all.

On July 7, the day of action stemming from the Rendezvous, about 100 Earth First!ers descended on the AMP office. They were not polite. Four people locked down to each other in non-violent civil disobedience inside the building’s lobby, while around 20 others delivered messages to the AMP Ohio employees with signs, banners, chants and songs. The activists said that they wouldn’t leave until all coal activity in Meigs County was stopped. Outside, two activists climbed the flagpoles in an attempt to hang a banner that read, “Meigs County doesn’t want your dirty coal plants!” An AMP Ohio employee ran out of the building and began yanking on the banner that was attached to the two climbers’ harnesses, endangering their lives. They were forced to cut the banner free, but remained atop the flagpoles.

When the police did arrive, I was shocked and appalled at what I saw. I witnessed police brutality first hand, as the Columbus police tortured my friends with chemical weapons and used excessive force in removing people from the building. People were pepper sprayed while trying to exit through a revolving door that was allegedly broken in the ruckus. If that door was broken, it was broken by cops picking people up and throwing them into it.

The four activists who were locked together got the worst of it. The police chose to use huge cans of pepper spray—the pressurized ones that are designed for use at the big protests to spray large crowds of people from 20 yards away. The police asked the crowd to leave the building once. The locked-down individuals reasserted that they wouldn’t leave willingly until all coal activity in Meigs County was stopped. The police didn’t try to carry them out. They simply opened up those huge, pressurized cans of pepper spray inches from my friends’ eyes. Then, while they were writhing in pain, the cops dragged them through the revolving doors while still chained together, injuring their wrists and arms. While the locked-down activists were being removed from the building, another activist was arrested and Tasered for trying to take photographs of the arrests. The two support people for the folks who had climbed the flagpoles were also arrested when they refused to leave their friends who were still 30 feet in the air. A eighth person was arrested after he was targeted by the police for an unknown reason and attempted to flee.

The activists who were locked together were put into a police wa­gon, and driven through the grass of a nearby park and over bumpy roads for more than an hour without medical attention. They were jailed for a day and a half without proper decontamination and sustained major burns on their faces, shoulders and chests. They were charged with criminal trespass and rioting.

Some 20 or 30 of us stood outside the jail for two days, waiting to get our friends back. We were very peaceful, but were threatened with arrest by the Sheriff’s Department. (We eventually did get our friends out of jail.) My friends stood up for what they believe in and were tortured and jailed for it. In the coming months, they will be nursing their wounds, plodding through the municipal courts and suing the Columbus police for the brutality that they experienced. Earth First! maintains the stance of our slogan, “No compromise in defense of Mother Earth,” and of our promise to AMP Ohio, “We won’t stop until you do.” My friends are keeping their chins up, and I’m more in love with them now than ever before.

You can send information to assist the lawsuits (if you were at the action), letters of support and donations to Hokhokken Earth First!, POB 275, Athens, OH 45701. Right now, every penny counts and is going directly to legal support.

For more information, contact rondy2008gmail.com.

http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/article.php?id=399