location of video:
www.youtube.com/watch
youtube.com/watch

Blockade at CMU's National Robotics Engineering Center

info about CMU and the killer robots
organizepittsburgh.org/m2/whynrec.php

photos
pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/26779.php
pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/26761.php

corporate media video
www.wpxi.com/news/11153465/detail.html#

blast furnace video journal
www.youtube.com/watch
youtube.com/watch

local papers
www.post-gazette.com/pg/07062/766519-53.stm
pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_495944.html

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unplugging the war machine direct action

On Friday, March 2, Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) and supporters
set out to shut down the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC),
a Pentagon-funded venture of Carnegie Mellon University, that has
become a world leader in warfare robotics. Hours before the 7am march
in Friendship Park, some affinity groups cut the cops to the chase and
began barricading NREC. All vehicular and pedestrian traffic was
subsequently cut off. More than 20 people barricaded the facility,
locked down to various gates and entrances. A tripod structure was
erected at the front gate.

The police and fire department took five and a half hours to cut free
the protesters at the back gate. During that time, 125 supporters
cheered, chanted and sang in solidarity at the railroad tracks facing
the barricade. Most of the corporate and independent media were in
attendance interviewing people and reporting on the events. Coverage
was reportedly on radio and television repeatedly throughout the
morning. Midway through the action, the protest marching band showed
up playing tunes, waving flags and kept everyone's spirits high. A
banner was dropped from the nearby 40th Street Bridge that read, "Shut
Down the War Machine: Stop NREC." The march that left Friendship Park
brought an additional 30 or so people to the scene earlier on.
Protesters at the front barricades unlocked and dismounted around noon
after learning that we've successfully shut the facility down for the
day.

In total 14 people were arrested (all at the back gate barricade). POG
is organizing an emergency jail solidarity action at the county jail
on 2nd Avenue downtown starting at 6pm tonight (Friday). Bring
blankets, food/drinks to share, and your energy to help support those
inside. We are in need of donations to our legal defense fund. If you
support tangible civil disobedience against the war, if you want to
help those who are putting their bodies on the line, if you want to be
there but can't for whatever reason, then please consider ensuring
that those arrested will have adequate legal representation and not
linger in jail. Please donate on our Web site if you can! Or drop off
cash or mail a check (made out to "Brian DiPippa"), to POG, c/o the
Thomas Merton Center, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224.

For more than four years POG has taken a variety of actions to oppose
this war and the militaristic system that gave rise to it. POG has
organized 50+ actions at our local military recruiting station
(shutting down the station on numerous occasions) and done educational
outreach at local high school. We brought 3000 people into the streets
before the war began and shutdown downtown Pittsburgh when shock and
awe began. We've held sit-ins, organized creative street theatre,
banner drops and dozens of other acts of resistance. All of our
efforts have been towards one aim: to do everything in our power to
oppose this war and change the system that gave rise to it. Today's
barricade is but the latest expression of our resistance and the
underlying love of peace and justice that drives it.

In solidarity,

Pittsburgh Organizing Group

pog (at) mutualaid.org

www.organizepittsburgh.org