These Protesters Rappelled From the Upper Deck During Monday Night Football
That’s one way to get attention.
Two protestors rappelled from the upper deck of Charlotte’s of Bank of America Stadium on Monday night and unfurled a banner calling for the bank to end its relationship with an energy company that’s trying to bring fracking to a tiny corner of the Maryland coastline. Meanwhile, the Colts and Panthers played a football game a few hundred feet away.
As Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden blathered on about the game, the protesters strapped in and climbed down so that there were hanging in front of the stadium’s press box. After some initial trouble, they dropped their banner, which read “BOA Dump Dominion.” It didn’t take long for police to converge on the protestors, who were left hanging as fans were cleared away from the sections above and below them. Eventually the local fire department was brought in to bring them down, and then police slapped on the cuffs.
2 protesters rappelled down an upper balcony to unfurl a banner protesting @BankofAmerica during MNF https://t.co/z39GsbxAEk
— 7 Sports Xtra (@7SportsXtra) November 3, 2015
The rappellers are a part of a Maryland activist group called We Are Cove Point, which is fighting the energy company Dominion and its plan to build a natural gas facility 60 miles outside of Washington, D.C.
“Bank of America is allowing companies like Dominion to operate without checks and balances,” one of the rappellers said in a statement. “They are giving money directly to Dominion with full knowledge of the health and safety risks of building an LNG export facility, and they need to be accountable to that.”
Four people in total were arrested for the protest. According to We Are Cove Point, they are facing charges for trespassing, resisting arrest and “throwing or dropping an object at a sporting event.” The group is trying to raising $6,000 to bail all of them out of jail, which is a steal for the kind of exposure the group is getting today.
MUGSHOTS: 4 arrested after protesters rappel down side of stadium during Panthers' game » https://t.co/YMsafkudwK pic.twitter.com/AznwbjlOfE
— WBTV News (@WBTV_News) November 3, 2015
That brings us to one potential downside of this protest: More rappellers interrupting more football games. Unless it’s a gaggle of #CocksNotGlocks supporters dropping from the sky during a Texas game, that’s just not something we want to see.
Photos by Streeter Lecka / Getty Images