Around 50 student, faculty, and citizen protesters met on Tuesday to march on the Army recruitment office in Metro Square, where they were confronted by four police officers and a security guard. Because the recruitment station had closed for the day in anticipation of the protest, protestors were unable to carry an act of civil disobedience as originally planned.
At Town Hall, the marchers were received more warmly when they read aloud a petition for the Middletown Common Council to pass a resolution for full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Councilman Bob Santangelo (D), a veteran of the Vietnam War, expressed support for the petition and said that the resolution would most likely be passed at the Council Meeting on Dec. 3rd.
“This will be voted on and accepted on Monday,” Santangelo said.
It was clear that preparations had been made for the protest. The recruitment office had closed early for the day, and a Metro Square security guard was present, who was soon accompanied by the Middletown police. The guard threatened the protestors with arrest if they did not exit Metro Square, citing private property laws. According to a July 2004 decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court, mall owners have the right to limit freedom of speech on their property.
Middletown police had been aware of the protest for weeks before the actual event, said Ashley Casale ’10, an organizer of the protest.
“I think they’d known for a while,” Casale said. “I got calls on my cell phone“which I don’t know how they got”from the police weeks before, and they knew exactly what we were doing.”
Furthermore, when Casale walked into the recruitment office pretending to be a journalist the day before the protest, she was refused an interview. She took this as a sign that the recruiters knew what she was up to, and so she sent the following email apology to Staff Sergeant Kenneth Larrick:
“I’ll be honest with you“I am a peace activist”but that doesn’t mean that my desire to communicate with you guys is some kind of under-cover attempt to plot against you as individual service members,” she wrote. “I do have to say, though, that I think it’s frightening that you don’t want to answer questions. The only people who refuse to answer questions are people who have something to hide, or know they are doing something wrong.”
Though the students did not heed the security guard’s warnings, none were arrested. After a long discussion with the guard and the police, as well as three recruitment officers (including Larrick) who arrived later, the students peacefully left the scene, even thanking the gathered officials.
Some exchanges earlier in the day did not end so cheerily. As the colorfully-dressed crowd walked down Main Street, a man in a passing SUV rolled down his window, raised two middle fingers, and shouted “liberal fucking cocksuckers!” There was little response“the marchers mainly shrugged, muttered, and continued on.
Casale, who under the aegis of WesPeace”an anti-war student and faculty organization“helped organize the protest with Art History Professor Nina Felshin and Sociology Professor Rob Rosenthal, says that Tuesday’s action is a sign of things to come.
“We want a few people to be going down to the recruitment offices every day,” she said. “I figure if we are there everyday they’ll either have to shut it down every day or arrest us.”
Ultimately, Casale hopes that these steps will move the student body into more “direct action.” If the Board of Trustees does not divest soon, for example, Casale hopes that more radical action will be taken than lobbying the WSA and protesting on a corner.
“I think Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI) are doing a really great thing with the divestment campaign,” she said. “I hope that Wesleyan divests soon, and that if they don’t, SEWI does something more direct. I would like to see them go into a Board of Trustees meeting and do something crazy.”