37 people arrested after protests at Y-12 nuclear weapons plant

Blocking the road to the Bomb plant. / photo: Clare Hanrahan

Tom Palumbo posted the following earlier today:

As of tonight 3 women remain in the Anderson County lockup, and 14 (including Steve Baggarly from the Norfolk Catholic worker) are behind bars in Maryville TN facing up to 1 year federal time. As for me I am out sleeping on the floor of a church, with a notice to appear next Tuesday.

wbir.com:

More than three dozen people were arrested after a protest at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge around 10 am Monday morning.

According to Oak Ridge Chief of Police David Beams, his department arrested 23 people for blocking a roadway at the Y-12 plant. All of those people were taken to the AndersonCounty Detention Facility for processing and were released with state misdemeanor citations.

Beams says an additional 14 people were arrested by U.S. Marshal's on federal trespassing charges, for scaling the fences at Y-12 to get on the property. Those people were taken to Blount County's Detention Facility.

photo from Tom's facebook album

The protesters were commemorating the 30th anniversary of the initial "Plowshares" anti-nuclear weapons protest that took place in 1980

At the Resistance for a Nuclear Free Future convergence, Maryville, Tennessee

July 2010 / photo: Clare Hanrahan

Another man, described as an "anti-protestor protestor," was charged with disorderly conduct after driving his truck into a crowd of protestors, honking his horn repeatedly and getting rowdy with police. He may also face additional charges.

Beams says there were no injuries reported and that all the protestors were arrested peacefully.

See Steve Clemens Article.