From the Vault: March ‘07 Pittsburgh Report on Successful Shutdown of Warfare Robotics Facility
February 21, 2008 at 2:10 am | In From the Vault, Reportbacks | No CommentsIn the spirit of updating the site daily, here’s a sweet write-up from the Pittsburgh Organizing Group’s (POG) direct action against the weapons industry in their community.
On Friday, March 2, Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) and supporters set out to shut down the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), a largely Pentagon-funded venture of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) that has become a world leader in warfare robotics. The action succeeded beyond the organizers’ expectations.
Two actions were organized for the purpose of creating a barricade. The first was a non-publicized effort by four affinity groups to barricade the main entrances through the use of lockboxes (long pipes through which people’s hands are locked together), u-locks, and a tripod. These groups deployed at 5am, before police were on the scene. This action alone blocked all vehicular access to NREC and severely disrupted the possibility of pedestrian traffic. The second piece of the action was a publicly announced 7:30am march from Friendship Park to NREC, which also intended to barricade the facility. As expected, a large number of police were deployed at various locations to ensure the march would not be able to successfully create a barricade.
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