USA: Six Arrested Blocking Road in front of Duke Energy HQ During DNC

Pro­test­ers sit­ting on a ban­ner that reads “Duke is destroy­ing our earth with tax­pay­er dol­lars” were arrest­ed Thurs­day after­noon at the inter­sec­tion of Try­on and Stonewall streets, near the Duke Ener­gy build­ing. Pho­to: Meghan Cooke

Six pro­test­ers were tak­en away in hand­cuffs ear­li­er Thurs­day near the cor­po­rate head­quar­ters for Duke Ener­gy. They had locked arms and were sit­ting on top of a ban­ner claim­ing that the ener­gy com­pa­ny was harm­ing the envi­ron­ment.

Two dozen offi­cers sur­round­ed them and even­tu­al­ly lift­ed up the pro­test­ers, who refused to move. They then put them into pris­on­er trans­port vans.

Just before her arrest, 26-year-old Christi­na Mounce of Casper, W. Vir­ginia, crit­i­cized the util­i­ty com­pa­ny for burn­ing coal and run­ning nuclear pow­er plants.

“We want Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to stop accept­ing their cam­paign mon­ey,” said Mounce, a marine biol­o­gist. “The pres­i­dent is set­ting a hor­ri­ble exam­ple by being linked with them.”

The demon­stra­tors at Stonewall and Try­on streets said they were demand­ing an audi­ence with Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Ener­gy.

The oth­ers arrest­ed were Amelia Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Audrey Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Richard French, 39, of Farm­ing­ton, N.M.; Matthew Good­sell, 56; and Michael Joseph Stew­art, 25, of Lake­wood, Colo. All were charged with imped­ing traf­fic.

Count­ing Thursday’s deten­tions, a total of 25 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed or tak­en away in hand­cuffs dur­ing the three-day con­ven­tion, which end­ed Thurs­day night.