Activists stage a “die in” in front of a nuclear weapon design lab in California in honor of Hiroshima Day.
The officer from the Alameda County Sheriffs department announced that if we failed to leave the entrance to Lawrence Livermore National Lab outside San Francisco , we would be arrested. For trespassing. I didnt leave. So I was arrested.
I joined 30 other men and women who chose to lie on the ground in a die-in. Mimicking the effects of a nuclear bomb blast.
Just like the one the US detonated in 1945, 68 years ago yesterday, on Hiroshima. Then three days later on Nagasaki.
I failed to leave because the threat of nuclear annihilation remains with us today here at Livermore Lab where they continue to design nuclear weapons.
Police arrest activist Karen Topakian
I failed to leave because the Department of Energy Nuclear Security Administration budget request for the2014 fiscal yeardevotes 84 percent of the monies to nuclear weapons activities.
I failed to leave because Lab weapons designers are developing the worlds first warhead to launch nuclear war interchangeably from a land-based silo or a submarine.
I lay on the ground on this cool August morning. To remind. To remember. To renew. My effort to stop this insanity that consumes our financial resources, our natural resources and probably, our humanity.
Activists in front of nuclear weapon design lab in California.
