The Mac Weekly

Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News

Eight Macalester students shut down the entrances of army and navy recruiting centers near the University of Minnesota. The students sat for more than seven hours, gathering a crowd of supporters, counter-protesters and local media.

Eight Macalester students lashed themselves together with PVC pipes fortified by duct tape and chicken wire while two students used U-shaped bike locks to fasten their necks to the entrances of army and navy recruiting centers on Washington Avenue near the University of Minnesota campus.

Macalester Students for a Democratic Society organized the March 27 event to protest the Iraq war, one week after its fifth anniversary. A crowd of about 100 people, most of whom voiced support for the protesters, gathered around the spectacle. Some, who were members of University of Minnesota's College Republicans, said the Macalester protesters were infringing on potential recruits' right to join the military.

The atmosphere was jubilant, with protesters waving signs and preening in front of the Fox and Kare 11 cameras. Macalester students carpooled, bicycled and took buses to the Minneapolis recruiting stations, where they were joined by U of M students, passers-by and students who played hookey from local high schools.

MPJC-SDS coordinated the protest in conjunction with the Anti-War Committee, a U of M student group. More than 200 U of M students attended an Anti-War Committee rally. Students proceeded to march to the Army National Guard recruitment office on Washington Avenue, across the street from the recruiting centers where Macalester students were protesting. Police on horseback and bicycles arrested 16 protesters who entered the National Guard office on trespassing charges, Minneapolis Police Sgt. Jesse Garcia said.

None of the arrested students attend Macalester and MPJC-SDS declared their protest a success.

"We declared Mission Accomplished because the centers were shut down all day, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m." a member of MPJC-SDS who called himself "DanarchyMacSDS" wrote in a post on Infoshop News, a website that bills itself as "anarchist news, opinion and much more."

At the protest the eight students who chained themselves to the recruiting centers doors declined to give their names and directed questions to Sadie Cox '11 and Daniel Balogh '10.

Continued...

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