Six Jerks Arrested For Vandalizing Banks
The Washington Post--and Erik Wemple via cellphone(!)--are reporting that there was a major incident of vandalism this morning at 14th and P Streets NW. A band of a-holes spray painted cars parked along the Whole Foods. Two banks were also hit:
"An off-duty D.C. police officer working security at a drug store this morning spotted the six breaking windows of a Wachovia Bank branch and a PNC bank branch in the 1400 block of P St NW, Crane said. The officer arrested two of the suspects."
The remaining four were arrested after attempting to escape the area, the Post reports.
The protesters obviously don't have a clue as to what they are doing. A) Smashing banks has little to do with the IMF and, well, 14th and P Streets is one of the busiest sections of town on the weekends. There are tons of people sitting at the outdoor restaurants and cafes. Even if it was early in the morning, the protesters were still going to face the dog walkers and residents making coffee and bagel runs to Whole Foods. Just dumb.
The Post writes that the six "were charged with felony counts of destruction of property and rioting, a charge that police said they brought because the group was larger than five people."
WTOP reports that a group of about 100 protesters attempted to march along a downtown street and were forced by police onto sidewalks.
*photo by Darrow Montgomery.
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12:24 pm
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Yes, smashing banks does have a lot to do with the IMF and World Bank. The message is pretty clear unless you are really really reaching for an excuse to be a pompous douche: The local bank branches are part of the large corporate banking infrastructure, which is part of the overall financial system, which the IMF and World Bank are part of. The IMF is being called in to examine the US banking system and, over the last two decades, critics have accused the IMF of enabling the financial system to destroy nations, lives, and, as we've all seen, itself.
So the link between PNC and Wachovia, both implicated in the sub-prime mortgage problem, isn't particularly hard to see.
Also, hey genius, your (A) left off a (B) so there was no need for an (A).
1:51 pm
What did the bank smashing actually accomplish? If the intent was to draw attention to the role of financial institutions in the current economic crisis, um I'm pretty sure people already know that. If it was meant to be a grand symbolic gesture, isn't that what the protest was supposed to be about? And in the end, all destruction did was potentially put community residents in harm's way and prevent bank employees from working for a few daya. I'm sure the employees who will be missing a chunk of their paychecks aren't benefitting from that. The working poor are working, but they're still poor. Protestors claim that they are angry because of IMF's role in contributing to poverty, but they just contributed to someone else's poverty too through their senseless violence.
1:57 pm
I can't think of a less effective protest than to smash the windows of two bank branches.
2:29 pm
@12:24 pm, uh, I don't think PNC has much to do with the sub-prime problem, at least not in a relative sense. So next time go smash a Citibank or a Wells Fargo or something.
2:37 pm
Also, if you want to riot and trash businesses and cars along the 14th St. corridor, ur doin it wrong. Here's what it should look like when you're done:
http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/01/16/1232148666_4925/539w.jpg
6:13 pm
You were just looking for an excuse to talk smack so own up to it Says: "The local bank branches are part of the large corporate banking infrastructure, which is part of the overall financial system, which the IMF and World Bank are part of."
That's a pretty intellectually rigorous connection you just drew there. You might as well burn a copy of "Joy of Cooking," because it was published by Simon & Schuster, and Simon & Schuster is owned by Viacom, which is quite definitely part of the global media oligoplutarchy.
Give me a break.
Besides -- what good does this do, except for giving the protestor a big throbbing boner? How does it help? What meaningful awareness does it raise? How does spray-painting "IMF" on an ATM suggest a better alternative to our "large corporate banking infrastructure?" There are problems with the system, for sure. So suggest some fixes; don't just give yourself a masturbatory adrenaline rush.
And you know who's going to have to clena up that spray paint and fix those windows? Some poor schlub who'd really rather be able to go home and eat dinner instead of working extra to clean up your mess. But hey, let's not think through our actions, because it's so much easier to just grab our spray paint phallus and pump it up and down until it sprays all over some object that we've completely alienated from any connection to humanity.
9:13 pm
Good point. I saw a man working on the windows this afternoon. It appeared that he had to bring his son along. I'm sure they had other plans for this beautiful Saturday. I'm sure they did not want to have to clean up all that broken glass and put boards on PNC's windows.
12:11 am
More to the point, what are the odds that the man working on the windows was a part of the oppressed working class on whose behalf the protestors supposedly broke the window? Way to go, dicks - you've just given the wealth holders one more opportunity to exploit the little guy.
12:35 am
Tear that shit down! Just because a bank chooses to pay someone to clean up the paint and fix the windows doesn't change the fact that the kids won't stop breaking things until the system lies in ruin. And if a few working class folks can make a few bucks in the process by patching things up, who are we to criticize? Job creation, yo.
3:27 am
How is getting paid overtime to fix the window bad for the worker? I get the one guy on here who clearly thinks that symbolic action is an iffy proposition--and there's merit to that. But trying to play as if "OH DEAR GOD THESE BANK BRANCHES ARE VICTIMS! HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO OUR NEIGHBORHOODS! AIEEE!"?
Y'all are tardbots.
9:48 am
which is the greater crime, to rob a bank or to own one?
12:59 pm
Banks are a necessary evil. Economies don't work well without some form of lending. Unless you're born into wealth, you sure as shit can't go to college or buy a house without a loan. You can't have a credit card, either. And your government revenues are slashed, because governments need plenty of loans themselves; good-bye, social services. Lending is an inherently risky proposition, and it takes a lot of time and effort to administer, so people do it for money, just like people do anything else all day long for money, whether it's window replacement or practicing law or selling pot.
So what's the problem? That banks make way too *much* money? I can agree with that. It's absurd to have billionaires when people are starving. So the solution would be to lower usury caps, redistribute wealth, or some such.... but it isn't to throw rocks and (speaking of tardbots!) get your dumb ass arrested 5 seconds later. It amounts to a bunch of ineffective violence. So what's the point?
I don't think we're playing as though the bank branches are poor angelic victims. But do you really think some guy cleaning up some broken glass on the weekend is going to get paid at time-and-a-half? Fat chance. The reason the situation is "bad for the worker" is because gorgeous Saturdays are meant for beer, baseball, and barbequing, not for cleaning up someone else's temper tantrum at 10 bucks an hour. Oh, thank you, spoiled brats, for creating jobs. Please hire some maids, butlers, and nannies (like some banking fat cat would do) while you're at it.
And another thing: You know who's going to end up paying for cleaning the glass, replacing the windows, and painting over the graffiti? Regular people who bank at PNC! All the costs will get passed on to them, whether through higher fees or crappier interest rates. So, eventually, you lose sight of the very people you're trying to help, and you end up waging a narcissistic guerilla war that doesn't effect anything, except your own arrest (more costs to taxpayers there, by the way...). There are thousands of ways to change the system without using this might-makes-right bullshit. Doesn't this turn you into the thing you hate?
On a meta note, I hope the CP wins a Pulitzer for entertaining this discussion on the merits of the "large corporate banking infrastructure." Fun times!
6:44 pm
I'm sure the folks who did this get along quite well without banks or money. They probably barter their work in exchange for food, lodging, clothing and incidentals.
I can hear it now:
Junior!? Have you taken the trash out yet?!?!
7:30 pm
I love it. The financial system has collapsed, millions of people are losing their homes, jobs, and health insurance, as well as any sense of control over their lives and those people are likely going to include those of us who are commenting on this thread in short order.
And we're fretting about some windows?
8:05 pm
Perhaps we're fretting about some window breakers, or, more accurately, some petulant children who don't give a shit about what they do or who it affects. And who, by the way, demonstrate by their actions that they really don't give a damn whether anything changes.
8:19 pm
Well the arguments on here are really fretting about the windows. If we were fretting about people, we'd be worried about how the police sent people who clearly WEREN'T breaking windows (since, according to the Post, all of those people were arrested at the scene of the incident) were beaten bloody and pepper sprayed, with two people being sent to the hospital, one with a dislocated knee?
Are you really more concerned about windows than human beings? Because that's what I'm getting from this absurd post and some of these comments.
If we're going to be personalizing things here, I'd suggest that some commenters and the original poster are happily displaying their likely overwhelming whiteness and class privilege by getting outraged over some broken windows rather than being concerned about people--because white middle class people are largely not the ones that have to worry about the economy collapsing or getting beaten by police.
But I wouldn't do that because personalizing political discussions is nasty and designed to shut down discussion rather than engage it.
9:44 pm
Thanks for the comment, middle-class white person!
10:40 pm
"I value people, not insured windows"
Ironic, since what has gotten so many into financial trouble is akin to a giant insurance scam- one perpetrated on us by us. That poorly-secured-credit bubble sure was nice while it lasted, eh?
"because white middle class people are largely not the ones that have to worry about the economy collapsing"
That the middle class is affected is almost a definition of either a boom or a bust.
"... or getting beaten by police."
At least not when they aren't publicly destroying others' property and/or fleeing arrest. Way to keep it real, yo.
1:56 pm
Mel doesn't think the bank protest was effective. Pretty sure that folks in pre-WW 2 Europe and Germany said it wasn't any use to try to stand up to Nazi oppression either.
10:44 am
Wake up people!! Smashing bank windows is a great way to protest! Here is why. When a person does something bad you can punish them. When a corporation does something bad you cannot. The only thing you can do is to hurt it financially. If the bank was shut down for a day or two it lost thousands upon thousands of dollars (i hope). Sure, protesting raises public awareness, but the smashing of bank windows had much more of an impact!