At 11:00 we gathered in front of the Federal Courthouse where the Detroit bankruptcy proceedings are being held. The protest was over putting fraudulent banks ahead of city worker pensions. The banks shouldn't get any money and should pay Detroit for the way they sucked value out of the city during the housing bubble and collapse.
Shortly after I got there (alas, a few minutes after the hour -- my preferred parking lot was full) I counted the number of people in the protest line and came up with 85. I heard later the count was up to 190. There were so many we were too bunched together and walked quite slow. The protest leaders wanted to extend the length of the line, but the security officers (some from Department of Homeland Security) said we had to keep the main doors clear and they always had one officer planted in the middle of the sidewalk to mark the extent of our space.
At noon, a few of us peeled off for the second event, leaving a decent crowd at the court. We walked to Hart Plaza to gather -- many others having already done so -- and walked a couple blocks to Bank of America. In that protest line I counted 125. I'm sure my count was low. After several minutes of chanting the leaders conducted a bit of street theater holding a people's trial of BofA.
This photo shows some of the signs featuring characters from the street theater. That included prosecutor, judge, witnesses, and the defendant Bankula, accused of sucking money out of Detroit.
This photo shows one of the more ingenious protest "signs." It is a vulture with dollar bills clutched in its talons, a house hung from its neck, and a BofA symbol dangling from its beak.
When that was over they marched to some other venue to do I'm not sure what. I took that opportunity to head home to get ready for an afternoon appointment (see next post).
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