Weelaunee Defense Society in Bloomington, IN Calls on Nationwide to Drop Cop City

Report on recent demonstration in so-called Bloomington, IN calling on Nationwide to drop support of Cop City. Originally posted to Bloomington Weelaunee Defense Society. 

10 members of Bloomington Weelaunee Defense Society held a protest this past Friday at First Insurance Group (FIG) in Bloomington, Indiana. This is just the latest in an ongoing series of protests in Bloomington and around the country intended to pressure Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company to drop its complicity in the Cop City project.

FIG, among its other providers, sells insurance by Nationwide, whose subsidiary Scottsdale Insurance Co. is the primary insurer of Cop City.

Our protest brought the attention of passers-by to the harmfulness of Nationwide’s partner choice, and called on employees of First Insurance Group to internally communicate their opposition to Nationwide’s support of Cop City and the Atlanta Police Foundation.

We showed up with posters, a beautiful banner honoring Tortuguita (murdered almost a year ago by police in the Weelaunee Forest) and flyers, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. After delivering FIG employees a flyer and explaining our demonstration, they agreed to take the issue to their Human Resources department. We were glad to receive encouraging waves from employees in the building, who seemed interested in the demonstration. We also handed out flyers to people passing by on the sidewalk, inviting them to join in our collective responsibility to end our community’s ties to the project.

We invite all opponents of Cop City to join us in regularly organizing these small and simple yet effective protests—which can be planned on short notice to great success—to tell your local businesses and their clients that it’s time to break off their complicity in the Cop City project.

We won’t stop till they stop – cop city will never be built!