Sunday, February 25, 2007

Frigid Winds Do Not Deter WAR

Demo #1 - Andrew Baker, CEO of HLS

A small group of intrepid campaigners braved brutal winter weather to gather at Andrew Baker’s posh Central Park West building to protest the killing of 500 animals every day by Baker’s company Huntingdon Life Sciences. The 5 activists faced an impressive phalanx of police vehicles that lined the opposite side of Central Park West. It started out as 3 and then 4 police vehicles and ended up with a grand total of 8 identified police vehicles from 2 different precincts and an unknown number of unmarked cars. Two of the vehicles were vans full of police officers. Police outnumbered protesters 5 to 1.

Despite the cold, walkers on Central Park West stopped to chat and to take brochures about the campaign to stop the killing at Huntingdon Life Sciences. As always, neighbors were supportive and expressed their admiration that we would be there on such a bitterly cold and windy day. We consider it an honor to stand up for the suffering and exploited animals imprisoned in Huntingdon Life Sciences. For them, every day is cold and lonely and full of terror and suffering. That knowledge makes it easier to bear the horrible weather.

Demo #2 - Nicole Brier, Sanofi Pasteur - Liaison

Three of the 5 original activists continued on to the next location, the nearby home of Sanofi’s Nicole Brier. Despite the fact that there were only 3 of us, we maintained our full 8 vehicle police escort. There were so many police cars and vans on West 90th Street that police cars were used to block the street so that cars could not travel through.

The high profile police presence caused many neighbors to come out of their buildings to find out what was going on. One elderly gentleman joked around with activists about how he was going to take advantage of the situation to go on a mini crime spree, since most of the local police were busy defending the neighborhood against three of us. When we asked one of the police officers why so many were assigned to monitor the demo, we were told that “police intelligence” indicated the need for added reinforcements. We will resist the strong temptation to comment on “police intelligence”, but we thank them for helping to raise the profile of what would have been a small and easily overlooked event.