Those looking for someone to blame for the Gulf oil spill have zeroed in on BP CEO Tony Hayward. Although Hayward is now starring in a new contrite television commercial aimed at calming his critics, he’s not likely to get the metaphorical target off his back anytime soon.
TIME’s Elizabeth Dias filed this report:
BP’s Tony Hayward is under arrest—staged citizen’s arrest that is. Armed with imitation oil (aka chocolate syrup) and charges of criminal negligence, nearly 150 citizens amassed in front of BP’s Washington DC office this afternoon to deliver Hayward his very own prison jumpsuit.
Citizen’s arrest dates back to medieval England when townspeople aided sheriffs to enforce village laws. Today members of Public Citizen, Greenpeace, Hip Hop Caucus, and Friends of the Earth followed suit and pronounced Hayward guilty of disregarding worker and environmental safety, price-gouging consumers, and destroying the Gulf through negligence. The protestors shouted, “No respect for workers, No respect for earth. BP can’t see what life’s really worth!”
Security guards refused the protesters’ visitor’s pass, so police entered the building on their behalf to attempt to coax down a BP executive. All the while, BP employees on the building’s upper floors peered down to photograph the melee. “I see you in the windows. Your greed is killing my people!” Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President of the Hip Hop Caucus, called up. Protestors lining the block then dropped to their knees in peaceful prayer, awaiting an answer. “Let BP know that not only are we fighting for our children, but we are fighting for their children as well,” Rev. Yearwood prayed.
No BP executives appeared outside, so Yearwood tied the jail suit to the doors of the company’s building at 1101 New York Ave. The citizen’s arrest is unofficial, of course, but unlike messes elsewhere, these protestors wiped up the syrup they spilled across BP’s doorstep.