Tarr, Duncan
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">still in fight, bless him</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://communemag.com/the-end-of-the-line/">https://communemag.com/the-end-of-the-line/</a></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The End of the Line</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DUNCAN TARR AND NOOR US-SABAH</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.20.2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rusting fossil-fuel infrastructure of the upper Midwest connects the poisoned residents of Flint to the wreckage of Alberta’s oil sands. Can it also become the backbone for a new movement against planet-killing capitalism?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the summer of 2016 a small group traveled, by bicycle, across the entirety of Michigan, tracing the route of the notorious crude oil and gas pipeline <b>“Line 5,” operated by the Canadian corporation Enbridge.</b> In addition to mapping the flow of oil as it crosses 360 waterways, the bikers stopped at every single house along the route. The principal goal of their journey, called “Bike the Line,” was to talk to the people who lived along the pipeline easement, who deal with the negligence and constant harassment of Enbridge, and who are at immediate risk when the pipeline spills.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It already has. Since 1968 twenty-nine spills have released more than a million gallons of oil into pastures, farmland, and waterways. Yet these incidents are nothing compared to the crisis they portend: five miles of Line 5 run along the lakebed at the junction of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, called the Straits of Mackinac. These straits are smack in the middle of the world’s largest freshwater supply, containing one fifth of the planet’s entire supply. Every day twenty-three million gallons of oil pass over the pipeline at Mackinac. “If you were to pick the worst possible place for an oil spill in the Great Lakes, this would be it,” said David Schwab, a research scientist at the University of Michigan Water Center, who conducted a computer simulation of a spill....</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duncan Tarr is a writer and organizer living in Lansing, Michigan. He is involved with the groups Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (MAPS) and Solidarity & Defense. Noor us-Sabah is an organizer, farmer, and musician currently residing in Detroit, Michigan.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/07/neighbor-cops-protesters-trespassed-schuette-home/86823500/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics<b>/2016/07</b>/07/neighbor-cops-protesters-trespassed-schuette-home/86823500/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lansing<span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">— A Midland neighbor of Attorney General Bill Schuette says an unruly crowd of protesters trespassed on Schuette’s lawn, banged on the doors and littered the property during a Wednesday demonstration that had to be broken up by police.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">
</span></font></div><p class="speakable-p-2 p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amy Ieuter, who has lived next door to Bill and Cynthia Schuette for nine years, said about 40 people marched around the Schuettes’ lawn early Wednesday afternoon, <b>throwing toilet paper in the trees, </b>leaving fake headstones in the grass and hanging signs from the trees.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The people were adamant that they weren’t going to leave the yard,” Ieuter said Thursday, confirming Cynthia Schuette’s account. “Very clearly they trespassed throughout the entire yard, and they were, yes, banging on the doors.”</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At least one protester claimed demonstrators didn’t bang on the doors or windows.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/07/06/schuette-thugs-attack-midland-home/86778534/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Cynthia Schuette was inside the home </a>when the demonstration began. The Attorney General’s office called the protesters “thugs” who were trying to intimidate Bill Schuette while his wife was alone.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">The </span><b style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands and the radical environmental group Earth First!</b><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"> organized the demonstration. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It appears they came prepared to make a statement against the Line 5 oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac — an issue in which <a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/calls-impartial-study-mackinac-pipelines-mount/86016286/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Schuette is involved</a>.</span></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another Schuette neighbor took a photo of a woman using climbing ropes to hang a large banner from two tall trees in the front lawn that read “No Line 5! Pipelines = Ecogenocide.”</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Somehow I doubt folks just happen to drive around with this equipment in their trunk, just in case. Cased the house?” Schuette aide John Sellek </span><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">asked Thursday on his personal </span><a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="https://twitter.com/johnsellek/status/751148312041062401" style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-decoration-line: none;">Twitter</a><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"> page.</span></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Midland police officers were called to the Schuettes’ home around 1:30 p.m. and found people all over the lawn and evidence of <b>chocolate sauce tossed on the beige brick home and water balloons</b> thrown at the house, interim Lt. Michael Sokol said Thursday.</font></p><cta-atoms-container-inline style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);" /><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<b>The house at that time was surrounded.</b> People were in the back yard and front yard,” Sokol told The Detroit News.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Police officers observed protesters banging on the front door and ground-level windows of Schuette’s house, Sokol said.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Once we arrived, they stopped,” Sokol said.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After speaking with Cynthia Schuette, Sokol said police dispersed the crowd to the street, where the demonstration continued for a few more minutes until more officers arrived from the Midland County Sheriff’s Department and state police.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It was their right to stand there; they were on city property,” he said. “I think they accomplished what they wanted to.”</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chocolate sauce also was dumped on the driveway in what protesters said was supposed to represent an oil spill<b>. Television crews later filmed workers washing off the driveway.</b></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because of their schedules, Midland officers who responded to the disturbance won’t have their report completed until early next week, Sokol said.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Schuettes have not said whether they want the Midland police to pursue charges for trespassing and littering, he said.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s no actual damage done,” Sokol said.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>State police troopers guarded the Schuette’s house overnight Wednesday, and the city police took over Thursday morning, Sellek said.</b></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Schuette was out-of-state Wednesday at a conference at the time, according to his office.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Bill and Cynthia Schuette have focused on taking care of each other first and in time will review what happened and if further action is desired,” Sellek said Thursday in a statement.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ieuter said Cynthia Schuette appeared “a little rattled” by the surprise protest on a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“She handled herself very calm, cool and collected, and she knows that these people are just wasting their time,” Ieuter said. “The Schuettes are very neighborly, polite people, and they did not deserve this in any way shape or form.”</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The groups that organized the protest said in a statement Wednesday they demonstrated at Schuette’s home to pressure him to shut down Line 5.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The protest generated bipartisan condemnation.</b></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The private property & families of elected officials should be off limits. This is over the line of legit protest,” Michigan Democratic Party chairman Brandon Dillon</span><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"> </span><a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="https://twitter.com/BrandonDillon75/status/750885583778566148" style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); text-decoration-line: none;">said on Twitter</a><span style="background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">.</span></font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An activist who identified himself as Dan Ayler on Wednesday said that none of the protesters had banged on windows or doors at the Schuette home.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I find it disturbing the attorney general is going to lie about what people were doing,” the man told The Detroit News.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But on Thursday, The News sought follow-up comment from Ayler but couldn’t re-establish contact or confirm his identity.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The phone number the man used to call a reporter is associated with Duncan Tarr, an activist with Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands who has had <a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/03/27/student-charged-protest-scuffle/70555134/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">past run-ins with the law</a>.</font></p><p class="p-text" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January 2015, Tarr was sentenced to one year of probation for locking his neck to an oil pipeline contractor’s truck with a bicycle lock during an August 2014 protest in Oxford of Enbridge’s Line 6B oil pipeline, the <a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a" href="http://www.dailytribune.com/article/DT/20150127/NEWS/150129647" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Oakland Press reported</a>.</font></p><p class="p-text p-text-last" id="article-body-p-last" style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Staff Writer Jonathan Oostring contributed.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://michiganradio.org/post/michigans-crime-victim-restitution-laws-being-used-corporations-make-protesters-pay">http://michiganradio.org/post/michigans-crime-victim-restitution-laws-being-used-corporations-make-protesters-pay</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For protesters and activists unhappy with a particular company or industry, driving up the cost of doing business is a tried-and-true way to apply pressure. Think about the grape boycott in the late 1960s for farm workers' rights. Or more recently, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/social-movements-fight-for-15-occupy-civil-rights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">protests over worker wages at fast-food restaurants</a>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now some corporations are fighting back by putting financial pressure on activists like Duncan Tarr, a 20-year-old junior at Michigan State University.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr is also an activist and cares deeply about Enbridge Energy’s line 6B<a href="http://www.enbridge.com/Line6BReplacementProjects.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"> pipeline. </a> The pipeline, which moves tar sands oil from Canada through Michigan and has an imperfect safety record, was being replaced last summer. Tarr and <a href="http://www.michigancats.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">a group he’s part of</a> were determined to get some attention.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr says things started with a traditional picket. Then, “My co-defendant and I stopped a truck. And we locked our necks to the truck with U-locks that you use, for like a bicycle,” he says. Firefighters came and cut the locks. The whole thing – the protest and the detaching – took about 90 minutes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr and one other young man were arrested and charged with trespassing; they expected that. What they didn’t expect was for Enbridge’s contractor, <a href="http://www.precisionpipelinellc.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Precision Pipeline</a>, to use Michigan’s crime victim restitution laws to assess charges to make up for the value of equipment and workers idled during their protest. Duncan Tarr was ordered to pay Precision Pipleine $39,226 in restitution. That’s twice as much as he owes in student loans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bankruptcy won’t get rid of a restitution order in Michigan, where restitution laws are among the most inflexible in the nation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Precision Pipeline repeatedly declined to comment for this story. Enbridge Energy, in an email from a spokesperson back in March, said in part, “We hope the convictions and the court’s decision will serve to deter others from creating unsafe situations in the future.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rashad Robinson heads up <a href="http://colorofchange.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Color of Change</a>, a national civil-rights group that successfully pressured the Mall of America to <a href="http://www.startribune.com/mall-of-america-won-t-seek-40-000-restitution-in-black-lives-matter-protest-case/299982321/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">drop a restitution claim</a> against a group of protestors that disrupted business with an action tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. He says he’s seen restitution used this way in Michigan, in California, and in Minnesota.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a tactic that we’re seeing especially as corporations continue to gain more and more power in our democracy,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In some ways, what’s going on between activists and their targets is a steady escalation on both sides. <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/roger-pilon" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Roger Pillon</a>, vice president of legal affairs at the Cato Institute, thinks it’s only fair protesters begin to bear some financial costs as well, particularly when they trespass to try to make a point.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve established rules for protest. If you violate them, you can’t expect to get away scot-free,” he says. “After all, you can’t impose the cost of your moral virtue on the backs of people who are just trying to run their own business.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.snre.umich.edu/profile/ajhoff" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Andy Hoffman</a> teaches business at the University of Michigan. He says while some companies might feel backed into a corner by activists, he wonders if demanding crime victim restitution will backfire.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This tactic could embolden more people to hate this company even more and go after them even stronger,” he says. “I think it’s a risky strategy.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duncan Tarr, the college student activist, says it hasn’t affected the anti-pipeline protesters he knows.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The people who know about the restitution, that’s something else they see as a really horrible thing. Some people have gotten involved after learning about the restitution.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s difficult to see how the use of financial tools will change the landscape of activism. It is certainly making an impact on individual protesters. Consider Duncan Tarr: The pipeline he was protesting against is up and running.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Lato, " helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" em="em" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizeLegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" word-spacing="word-spacing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, he stills owes more than $39,000 dollars on his restitution bill. </font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.clarkstonnews.com/Articles-News-c-2015-02-04-257469.113121-sub14472.113121-Judge-to-decide-whether-protesters-pay-39K-in-restitution.html">http://www.clarkstonnews.com/Articles-News-c-2015-02-04-257469.113121-sub14472.113121-Judge-to-decide-whether-protesters-pay-39K-in-restitution.html</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fe<span class="editorialdate" style="font-weight: bold; z-index: 290; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">bruary 04, 2015 - </span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Two environmental activists are waiting to learn whether the illegal protest methods they used in Oxford Township last year will cost them nearly $40,000.</span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">52-3 District Judge Julie Nicholson is expected to issue a written ruling on whether Duncan Tarr and Dylan Ochala-Gorka will be responsible for paying the Wisconsin-based Precision Pipeline $39,226 in restitution for losses it claims resulted from a work disruption caused by the protesters.</span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"It was, in my mind, really excessive," said Denise Heberle, the Ann Arbor attorney who's representing the activists. "The defendants are young men. One is a full-time college student, the other's a part-time, freelance carpenter. If they are hit with that kind of (debt), it's going to take them the rest of their lives to pay it."</span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton had little sympathy for the activists' plight given their criminal actions.</span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Companies Fight Back Against Protesters With Financial Pressure</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 2, 2015</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By SARAH ALVAREZ, NPR</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For protestors and activists unhappy with a particular company or industry, driving up the cost of doing business is a tried and true way to apply pressure. Think about the grape boycott in the late '60s for farmworkers rights. Or more recently, protests over worker wages at fast food restaurants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But now some corporations are fighting back by putting financial pressure on activists.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duncan Tarr is a 20-year-old junior at Michigan State University. He is also an activist.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the things he cares deeply about is a pipeline, called line 6B. It moves tar sands oil from Canada through Michigan and has an imperfect safety record.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last summer, while the pipeline was being replaced, Tarr was part of a group determined to get some attention.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We were picketing in front of where they parked all their construction vehicles, and then my co-defendant and I stopped a truck and we locked our necks to the truck with U-locks that you use like for a bicycle," he says.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Firefighters came and cut the locks. Both the protest and the detaching took about 90 minutes. Tarr and one other young man were arrested and charged with trespass — they expected that.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What they didn't expect was that the company, Precision Pipeline, would use Michigan's crime victim restitution laws to assess charges to make up for the value of equipment and workers idled during their protest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr now owes more than $39,000. That's twice as much in restitution as he owes in student loans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bankruptcy won't get rid of a restitution order in Michigan. Precision Pipeline repeatedly declined to comment for this story.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rashad Robinson heads up Color of Change, a civil rights group that successfully pressured the Mall of America to drop a restitution claim against a group of protesters that disrupted business with an action tied to the Black Lives Matter movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He says he's seen restitution used this way in California, Minnesota and Michigan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's a tactic that we're seeing especially as corporations continue to gain more and more power in our democracy," Robinson says.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In some ways, what's going on between activists and their targets is a steady escalation on both sides.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs at the Cato Institute</b> thinks it's only fair that protestors begin to bear some financial costs as well, particularly when they trespass to try to make a point.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We've established rules for protest. If you violate them, you can't expect to get away scot-free," Pilon says. "After all, you can't impose the cost of your moral virtue on the backs of people who are just trying to run their own business."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andy Hoffman teaches business at the University of Michigan. He says while some companies might feel backed into a corner by activists he wonders if demanding crime victim restitution will backfire.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This tactic could embolden more people to hate this company even more and go after them even stronger," Hoffman says. "I think it's a risky strategy."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duncan Tarr says it hasn't affected the anti-pipeline protestors he knows.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The people that know about the restitution, that's something that they also see as a really horrible thing," he says, "and some people have gotten involved after learning about the restitution stuff."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While it's difficult to see how the use of financial tools will change the landscape of activism, it is certainly making an impact on individual protestors. For Tarr, the pipeline he was protesting against is up and running. Meanwhile, he's stills owes money on his restitution bill</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div></div>