Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 – Fol­low­ing a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing in North Texas by Tar Sands Block­ade, many dozens of pro­test­ers and sup­port­ers are ral­ly­ing today at the site of the largest and longest tree sit in Texas his­to­ry to stage the largest walk-on site protest and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence in the his­to­ry of Key­stone XL pipeline con­struc­tion. Sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als are defend­ing the tree sit­ters and the trees by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment being used in prox­im­i­ty to the for­est block­ade. Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are also tak­ing place in Wash­ing­ton DC, Boston, Austin and New York City.

Alto­geth­er more than 50 block­aders are risk­ing arrest to stop Key­stone XL con­struc­tion and bring atten­tion to TransCanada’s repres­sion of jour­nal­ists attempt­ing to cov­er the block­aders’ side of the sto­ry. They are joined by dozens of sup­port­ers who are ral­ly­ing on pub­lic prop­er­ty with col­or­ful ban­ners and signs along­side the easement’s clos­est high­way cross­ing. A mas­sive media team is in tow to doc­u­ment the day of action and any pos­si­ble police repres­sion.

As the Winns­boro tree block­ade enters its fourth week, the block­aders are resup­ply­ing their friends in the trees with fresh food, water, and cam­eras to fur­ther doc­u­ment their protest despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment. Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree sit­ters have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. That the defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest yet attempt­ed in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that the block­aders will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it their civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Three weeks is a long time to be sit­ting in a tree. The train­ing I got this week­end has me ready to rise up and join the sit­ters in defend­ing Texas homes from the tox­ic tar sands,” shared Glenn Hob­bit, 28. “They’re say­ing we might get sued or worse, but stop­ping this pipeline is too impor­tant.”

Last week, the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion opened a civ­il suit in which it named 19 indi­vid­ual defen­dants, 3 orga­ni­za­tions, and 6 anony­mous tree sit­ters for a total of 28 defen­dants seek­ing an injunc­tion, declara­to­ry relief, and dam­ages. All the named defen­dants are for­mer arrestees of Tar Sands Block­ade actions with the excep­tion of media spokesper­son Ron Seifert, who has yet been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with a protest, and area landown­er Eleanor Fairchild, who act­ed inde­pen­dent­ly with activist and actor Daryl Han­nah. Han­nah was not named in the suit.

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“In real­i­ty, Tar Sands Block­ade is not tres­pass­ing on TransCanada’s prop­er­ty. Many of TransCanada’s ease­ment con­tracts were bro­kered through fraud and intim­i­da­tion, and their entire legal foun­da­tion is being chal­lenged in the courts for those rea­sons,” explained Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son. “If any­thing Tran­sCana­da is tres­pass­ing on the prop­er­ty of landown­ers who nev­er want­ed any­thing to do with their dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline.”

UPDATE 8:15AM - Sup­port­ers ral­ly near­by to stop the pipeline.

UPDATE 8:20PM- A beau­ti­ful morn­ing in what remains of our East Texas for­est. Tran­sCana­da has clear-cut out­side of their des­ig­nat­ed path­way and around the west side of the tree block­ade leav­ing a mud­dy path of destruc­tion in their wake.

UPDATE 8:35PM-  Over 50 block­aders march through the woods toward the tree block­ade

UPDATE 9:00AM - One block­ad­er arrest­ed after sit­ting down in the path of Key­stone XL and refus­ing to leave.

UPDATE 9:06AM- Three block­aders have been arrest­ed. We out­num­ber TransCanada’s police 3 to 1. Two block­aders have locked down to exca­va­tor equip­ment pro­tect­ing the tree block­ade.

UPDATE 9:20AM- Livestream­er @uneditedcamera (Loren­zo) has been detained and hand­cuffed, but they’re STILL STREAMING! Police are try­ing to flank groups of pro­tes­tors. Watch the stream live NOW!

UPDATE 9:45AM– Small group of ground block­aders break through police line and enter tree block­ade!

UPDATE 10:00AM- 4 arrests so far. Free­lance journalist/livestreamer Loren­zo Ser­na has been released. The ral­ly at the ease­ment near the high­way is going strong with chant­i­ng, singing and lots of col­or­ful ban­ners. Tran­sCana­da is bark­ing orders at the police. We should have video and pic­tures soon.

UPDATE 11:00AM- Today’s first sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Wash­ing­ton DC is begin­ning now out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute!

UPDATE 11:10AM- 6 block­aders have been arrest­ed at the Tree Block­ade.

UPDATE 11:35AM- Pic­ture from the DC sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly. Over six­ty peo­ple turned out over their lunch hour to stand with the Texas block­ade and stop Key­stone XL.

UPDATE 12:50PM-We have now con­firmed that a 70-year-old woman par­tic­i­pat­ing in the block­ade was thrown to the ground and tack­led by TransCanada’s hired thugs. Video will be com­ing soon.

UPDATE 1:55PM – At least eight peo­ple have been arrest­ed after walk­ing onto the Key­stone XL clear cut in defi­ance of recent repres­sion. Two block­aders are still locked to huge exca­va­tor in the path of tox­ic pipeline.

UPDATE 3:20PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty ral­ly in Den­ton, TX has begun!

UPDATE 3:45PM- In case you missed it, Tar Sands Block­ade was on Democ­ra­cy Now! this morn­ing. Our spokesper­son Ron Seifert was joined by landown­er Susan Scott and actress Daryl Han­nah to dis­cuss the block­ade, TransCanada’s bul­ly­ing and the SLAPP law­suit against 21 peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with stop­ping tar sands.

UPDATE 3:50 PM — Two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery have been arrest­ed. A crowd of sup­port­ers stood by and cheered for as they were tak­en into police cus­tody to the cheers. These two most recent arrests make eight total for the day.

UPDATE 4:00PM – Our first arrestee has been released with­out charges. He was arrest­ed ear­ly this morn­ing when he sat down in the Key­stone XL’s path­way and refused to move. His defi­ant action helped delay police offi­cers and allowed oth­er block­aders to breach the police line and enter the tree block­ade. After he was arrest­ed he was made to lie face-down in the mud for sev­er­al hours. He con­tin­ued to refuse com­pli­ance with the police and sit­ing health con­cerns had to even­tu­al­ly be removed on a stretch­er. He was lat­er released from the hos­pi­tal with­out charges.

UPDATE 4:15PM- Sol­i­dar­i­ty pho­to in front of the Tran­sCana­da offices in West­bor­ough, Mass­a­chu­settes.

UPDATE 4:30PM ‑We’re get­ting sued!

As the Winns­boro, Texas tree block­ade enters its fourth week, over 50 block­aders pub­licly demon­strat­ed on the Key­stone XL ease­ment despite the threat of a new­ly-expand­ed Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP) by Tran­sCana­da and egre­gious crim­i­nal over­charges by local law enforce­ment.

Due to the SLAPP suits’ out­ra­geous claims, the tree block­aders have by-and-large felt too threat­ened to safe­ly reveal their iden­ti­ties, despite their protest being non­vi­o­lent. Today’s defi­ant walk-on protest is the largest in the his­to­ry of protests sur­round­ing Key­stone XL con­struc­tion sends a clear sig­nal that we will not be deterred by SLAPP suits and oth­er legal threats to lim­it our civ­il lib­er­ties.

Appar­ent­ly we’ve been caus­ing some seri­ous delays of Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

UPDATE 6:00PM- Six of the eight arrest­ed today have been released from jail on charges of crim­i­nal tres­pass which is a class B mis­de­meanor. The bail was $1,500 each, a total of $9,000. The two block­aders who locked them­selves to Key­stone XL machin­ery will see a judge in the morn­ing.

UPDATE 8:00PM- Today was our biggest day of action yet! More video and sto­ries will be trick­ling out over the next cou­ple of days as we try and wrap our heads around every­thing that hap­pened today. In the mean­time we have a ton of bril­liant and beau­ti­ful pho­tos that begin to tell the sto­ry. Check them out.

UPDATE 6:00AM – Read the excel­lent cov­er­age about the block­ade in today’s Wash­ing­ton Post.

On Mon­day, after a week­end of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence train­ing, sup­port­ers of the Tar Sands Block­ade ral­lied in Winns­boro, Tex., where pro­test­ers were hold­ing a “sit-in” 70 feet off the ground in a swath of trees. The trees stand in the mid­dle of a cor­ri­dor already cleared for the pipeline. The tree-climb­ing pipeline foes unfurled a ban­ner that reads: “Rise Up and Defend Your Homes.”

“The only option afford­ed to pow­er­less indi­vid­u­als who have been abused by the sys­tem is this tac­tic of non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence,” said Seifert, the Tar Sands Block­ade spokesman. “Every­thing has been done to peti­tion for jus­tice at every lev­el. And the insti­tu­tions failed. This is a clear case of injus­tice, and it’s up to peo­ple to rise up and defend them­selves.”  Read the full sto­ry here.

UPDATE Oct 16th, 7:00AM - Watch our intense action video!

For fur­ther updates vis­it http://tarsandsblockade.org

WINNSBORO, TEXAS – Mon­day, Octo­ber 1, 2012 8:00AM – A Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­er has stopped the destruc­tion of a small fam­i­ly farm in East Texas by lock­ing him­self in front of oncom­ing Key­stone XL clear­ing equip­ment. Hous­ton res­i­dent, Ale­jan­dro de la Torre, 28, is tak­ing action to stop the Key­stone XL pipeline from destroy­ing the home of yet anoth­er Texas fam­i­ly threat­ened by TransCanada’s poi­so­nous tar sands slur­ry.

In a pow­er­ful dis­play of con­vic­tion, De la Torre locked his arm into a con­crete cap­sule buried direct­ly in the pro­posed path of the tox­ic pipeline. This coura­geous act is pre­vent­ing TransCanada’s unwel­comed onslaught of machines from dev­as­tat­ing prop­er­ty cap­tured through emi­nent domain abuse. Fol­low live updates on face­book and twit­ter.

“I was raised in New Orleans, so I’ve seen how local com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer at the hands of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions,” attests de la Torre. “I’m will­ing to risk arrest today to stop this tar sands pipeline because I have the priv­i­lege to help pro­tect the safe­ty of those most affect­ed. Key­stone XL endan­gers the health and safe­ty of every­one from the landown­ers and their fam­i­lies now threat­ened by can­cer caus­ing leaks, to the refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties in Hous­ton that have to breathe the dirty air, as well as peo­ple of col­or around the world who are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by cli­mate change.”

In a sep­a­rate protest just miles away on the oth­er side of Winns­boro, Tar Sands Blockade’s aer­i­al tree protest enters into its sec­ond week. Sit­ters in plat­forms near­ly 100 feet in the air are not deterred by reck­less behav­ior on the part of TransCanada’s work crews. Despite repeat­ed warn­ing of the dan­gers on the part of the pro­test­ers, the com­pa­ny is encour­ag­ing the use of dan­ger­ous tree clear­ing equip­ment with­in feet of pro­test­ers’ trees, endan­ger­ing their lives.

Today’s block­ade comes less than a week after Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors encour­aged law enforce­ment to bru­tal­ize two peace­ful pro­test­ers who were act­ing in defense of the largest tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry. One of the abused pro­test­ers, Ben­jamin Franklin, explained why peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence must con­tin­ue despite the vio­lence orches­trat­ed by Tran­sCana­da, “I encour­age every­one to per­se­vere in the face of this type of sheer bru­tal­i­ty. To fol­low one’s moral com­pass in spite of extreme chal­lenges is the way we move for­ward towards a more humane, tar sands-free plan­et.”

Below is a pre­vi­ous­ly record­ed video of the landown­er, Susan Scott whose land stands to be clear-cut today, con­fronting TransCanada’s sur­vey­ors.

“Tran­sCana­da doesn’t have any local com­mu­ni­ty ties, it lies about the safe­ty of its pipeline because it cares more about mon­ey than about peo­ple,” claims Ron Seifert, spokesper­son for Tar Sands Block­ade.  “If this multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion had any com­pas­sion for East Texan’s homes, it would respect our con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect­ed prop­er­ty rights instead of con­demn­ing the land and using it for its own pri­vate gain.”

UPDATE: 9:30AM – Police Arrive and Begin to Calm­ly Access the Sit­u­a­tion

UPDATE: 10:30AM – Tran­sCana­da Work­ers Bring­ing Shov­els and Threat­en­ing to Dig Ale­jan­dro Out

UPDATE: 11:00AM – Police Baf­fled About How to Respond – Tran­sCana­da Heli­copter Cir­cling Over­head

UPDATE: 11:30AM – Fire and Res­cue Crews Arrive With More Plain Clothes Police

UPDATE: 1:00PM – Police Steal Cam­era From Observers Stand­ing Near­by on Pri­vate Prop­er­ty

After the the tor­ture tac­tics used on our block­aders last week at the encour­age­ment of Tran­sCana­da super­vi­sors we’ve made ever effort to ensure we have observers on the scene care­ful­ly watch­ing with a video cam­era. Observers were stand­ing near­by on pri­vate prop­er­ty when police con­fis­cat­ed their cam­era! For­tu­nate­ly, TV crews are arriv­ing on the scene and hope­ful­ly they wouldn’t be sub­ject­ed to this same obstruc­tion of civ­il lib­er­ties.

UPDATE: 1:15PM – Police Attach Hand-Cuffs to Alejandro’s Ankles – Unde­terred He Holds Strong

UPDATE: 1:25PM – Police Put a Screen Around Ale­jan­dro So Observers Can’t Watch and Pro­tect Him

Since the police stole our main cam­era right now we only have pho­to of the screen tak­en far away with a cell phone cam­era. A back­up pho­tog­ra­ph­er arrived on the scene lat­er and took high def­i­n­i­tion pho­tos that we’ll upload on our flickr stream tonight.

UPDATE: 3:00PM – Police Chis­el­ing Away at the Under­ground Cap­sule That Ale­jan­dro is Locked Into

UPDATE: 3:45PM – Ale­jan­dro Has Been Arrest­ed For Help­ing Save a Fam­i­ly Farm From Key­stone XL

After delay­ing con­struc­tion for almost an entire day Ale­jan­dro has been extract­ed from the under­ground cap­sule and arrest­ed. Through his brave actions he was able to bring to light the dis­re­spect that local landown­ers have suf­fered at the hands of TransCanada’s emi­nent domain abuse and tram­pling of landown­er rights.

Sup­port Alejandro’s legal fees with a gen­er­ous dona­tion.

UPDATE: 4:00PM – Bull­doz­er Has Moved in to Lev­el More of the Fam­i­ly Farm 

After being delayed almost an entire work-day by Alejandro’s actions Key­stone XL con­struc­tion crews quick­ly moved in with machin­ery to get in at least one hour of work bull­doz­ing a local landown­ers beloved fam­i­ly farm before the end of the work day.

To per­ma­nent­ly stop this tox­ic pipeline we need more peo­ple to join us. Sign up to attend our Direct Action Train­ing Oct. 12–14th.

UPDATE: 6:00PM – Read Alejandro’s Sto­ry of How His Pas­sion For Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Moti­vates Him

“I’m will­ing to risk arrest because I have a cer­tain amount of per­son­al priv­i­lege that allows me to par­tic­i­pate. I don’t live near a Gulf refin­ery, or on land that’s at risk from a dev­as­tat­ing tar sands spill, so I’m able to play a small part in an action that will real­ly help people’s lives.  I’m here to stand up for peo­ple on the front lines because they’re being tram­pled to make way for cor­po­rate prof­its.

I’m sick of see­ing these dev­as­tat­ing affects on a per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty lev­el and on a grand glob­al scale in which cor­po­ra­tions and their prof­its call all the shots.”

Read more of Alejandro’s sto­ry here.

UPDATE: 8:00PM – Excel­lent Cov­er­age From KLTV Chan­nel 7 – Tyler

KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jack­sonville, Texas | ETX News

UPDATE: OCTOBER 2nd, 9:00AM – Alejandro’s Bail Set at $10,000

Yes­ter­day Hous­ton res­i­dent Ale­jan­dro de la Torre delayed Key­stone XL clear cut­ting oper­a­tions on a fam­i­ly farm out­side Winns­boro, Texas for almost an entire day. De la Torre locked him­self to an under­ground cap­sule in the path­way of Key­stone XL to pro­tect the farm, say­ing sim­ply that “I’m here to stand up for peo­ple on the front lines because they’re being tram­pled to make way for cor­po­rate prof­its.” After Wood Coun­ty Sher­iff Depart­ment con­fis­cat­ed peace­ful observers camera’s they arrest­ed him for his coura­geous action.

De la Torre is cur­rent­ly being held on trumped up charges and a bail set at $10,000, an out­ra­geous sum for a non­vi­o­lent peace­ful pro­test­er. As a sup­port­er of Ale­jan­dro and the block­ade please demon­strate your sup­port with a gen­er­ous dona­tion to his bail. 

UPDATE: OCTOBER 2nd, 10:0AM- Ale­jan­dro Released!

Ale­jan­dro de la Torre has been released from Wood Coun­ty Jail. When more infor­ma­tion becomes avail­able we will update. For now, check out what Ale­jan­dro said before he was arrest­ed on our blog.