Pittsburgh, PA: Stop Banking the Bomb Continues Struggle Despite Police Pressure

Report from the continued ‘Stop Banking On the Bomb’ campaign in Pittsburgh.

On January 5th at 11AM, the Stop Banking the Bomb campaign picketed a PNC Bank branch located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The 20 or so protestors were watched closely by five police squad cars from different police departments who have authority over Oakland where the University of Pittsburgh’s campus is located. Bank employees inside the Oakland branch told members of the SBTB campaign that the police were encouraging them to complain about SBTB so they could ask them to disperse.

At the previous picket located at PNC Tower in downtown Pittsburgh, police were stationed outside the buildings entrance to make sure protestors couldn’t picket on the “PNC owned sidewalk.” And past protests have consistently been attended by a PNC security employee who has been taking pictures and introducing himself to people in attendance.

Despite the increased police and security presence, Stop Banking the Bomb will continue to demand that PNC bank end its financial support of the nuclear weapons industry. The surveillance and attempts at disruption show that PNC and their police protectors have now realized something: Stop Banking the Bomb isn’t going away. Its getting bigger and bigger every month and they can’t stop it. The more police show up, the more people in the community are curious to see whats going on. And the more police attempt to subvert the protests, SBTB’s allies start to realize that the Banks are just like all the other bad actors in Pittsburgh who use cops to protect their bad behavior. PNC can call in the state all they want, in the end they will stop funding nuclear weapons and when they do we will remind them and every other bank that their reign over our society is over.

For more information on Stop Banking the Bomb and their effort to destroy the financial industry’s support of nuclear weapons, visit stopbankingthebomb.org.