Asheville: 8 Arrested After Throwing Down Against Pipelines and Prisons

Submitted to It’s Going Down

Folks in Western North Carolina had a busy day fighting back against prisons, pipelines, and police on September 9th. A small crew got started in the morning with a visit to a state prison in Spruce Pine, NC to show solidarity with prisoners locked up far from their families in this rural prison. Unfortunately 5 people were arrested on bullshit trespassing charges for doing little more than holding a banner by the prison. Thankfully support folks mobilized quickly and secured their release within hours.

In the afternoon 200 people gathered in downtown Asheville to show solidarity with indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. After speeches by some Cherokee, Lakota, and Lumbee activists, folks hit the streets to take on TD Bank, an investor in the pipeline. Upon arriving at the bank the crowd flooded into the outer lobby of the bank building to find that the bank employees had locked themselves inside. Drumming, chanting, and speechifying commenced, essentially shutting down the bank until near closing time. The crowd was able to disperse without arrests, with the police only making half-assed attempts to disperse.

About an hour after the pipeline march, a crowd of 50-60 people took the streets in an unpermitted march through downtown during rush hour carrying banners reading “End Prison Slavery” and “Abolish Prisons”. From the start police were much more aggressive towards the marchers then earlier in the day, attempting to coral people onto the sidewalk with their cruisers. These attempts largely failed as folks held the streets and headed towards the county jail chanting anti-prison slogans and banging on pots and pans. Lots of honks of approvals and thumbs up were received from passerby’s. Unfortunately to get close to where prisoners are held the march had to go down a narrow side street that is out of public view. Once out of the public eye the police moved in and randomly grabbed 3 folks from the crowd and arrested them. A bit of confusion set in amongst the march at this point. But after some more chanting and noise-making, folks were eventually able to safely disperse without any further arrests. The 3 arrested were charged with blocking traffic and one was charged with resisting arrest. Again folks were able to secure the arrestees release within hours.

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FTP X 3 = Fuck the Police, Fuck the Prisons, Fuck the Pipelines!