8 Arrested in San Francisco After Hanging Anti-Fur Banner
Eight people were arrested during an anti-fur protest at Union Square on Friday after they climbed a building to hang a banner.
San Francisco Police Sgt. John Haggett said the demonstrators were arrested on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, a felony.
The protesters were arrested at 4 a.m. after they apparently used a 20-foot extension ladder to reach the fire escapes on an 11-story building to hang a banner on a billboard.
The 36-foot by 26-foot banner read “Fur Is Dead: 40 Million Killed by Electrocution or Gassing,” according to the Marin-based In Defense of Animals.
The remaining activists from the group spent Friday peacefully protesting the sale of fur. Haggett said Friday afternoon that there had been no further problems.
The arrests in San Francisco were part of a nationwide effort to draw attention to the number of animals killed each year for fur products, according to the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, one of the national organizers.
Arrests elsewhere included 11 at San Diego’s Fashion Valley Mall, three in Dallas, five in Salt Lake City, six in Atlanta, 10 at Dayton’s department store in downtown Minneapolis, six at two fur stores in central New Jersey, and two at the entrance to Macy’s main department store in New York.
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