Animal Rights

On the evening of 28th of November, the Park Service set up the usual barricades and flashing lights indicating preparatons to shoot deer. By a little after 9PM they disappeared, protesters having threatened to deploy. The Park Service had warned people to be off the trails by 8PM on both Monday and Tuesday nights. They were expected to try again Tuesday, Nov 29 but once again did not show up. Protesters were there instead, and had announced they were coming.

On the 21st of August, plainclothes security guards forcibly removed a number of animal rights activists from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception after they began a "vegan outreach" protest/speakout. As soon as they got outside the door they became violent enough to inflict bruises, knocking down the activist using the camera. The camera stopped when it hit the ground. Not knowing the camera had stopped, the woman using it turned it on one of the guards while he was boasting "yeah I assaulted you" to another activist. The camera still some of what that same guard was boasting about, meaning his "testimony" isn't needed anyway.

Video of the incident including bruises left by the assault

On the 3ed of July, activists from Direct Action Everywhere showed up at the National Zoo with fliers, signs, and a bullhorn denouncing the zoo as a prison for animals. Zoos have been compared to life in prison with no parole before. The comparison made the zoo sufficiently uncomfortable that as soon as the bullhorn started up, zoo cops responded, trying to claim ownership of the sidewalk in front of the zoo. Protesters rejected that lie, and both Park Police and MPD showed up, in the end reminding the zoo police that the zoo does not in fact own the sidewalk. Many times security guards have made that claim at a protest, and time after time even the police have had to admit this claim is a lie.

Video of the zoo protest and zoo cops trying to claim ownership of the sidewalk

On the 4th of April, anti-vivisection activists showed up in front of the offices of BlackRock, which holds over 7 million shares of stock in Skanska USA construction. Skanska is building what is essentially a buried fortress vivisection laboratory for University of Washington. There were protests against BlackRock and other Skanska investors all over the continent on April 4. Here in DC activists began by fliering people going into BlackRock's building, following up on polite letters which have been ignored. This is the opening round of the DC portion of the "fracture their finances" campaign

Downloadable copy of No New Animal Lab campaign flier distributed outside BlackRock