About a dozen people showed up today at the Multnomah County Justice Center to support a PDX Rising Tide activist who on Thursday locked himself to a railroad bridge as part of the huge and crazy #ShellNO protest.
Jonah Majure is charged with one count of first-degree trespass for sneaking on to the bridge and using a u-lock to affix himself to the bridge by his damn neck.
Majure appeared with his attorney, Ben Andersen, and entered a not guilty plea (standard for an arraignment). He’s scheduled for his next court appearance on Aug. 26 at 9 a.m.
After his appearance, Majure talked a little about sneaking on to the bridge, which had been under heavy police patrol for days due to the protest.
“We’d tried to get up there by using a hilarious distraction, but didn’t make it. Then I tried in the dark where I was crawling through the bushes and the police were actively looking for me,” he says. “Yesterday, things were getting pretty intense at the St. Johns Bridge, so we just split and thought maybe we could do it.”
Majure locked himself on the southeast side of the bridge and unfurled a big banner sporting a Shell logo and a large middle finger. He says he got onto the railroad bridge unseen and started toward the place he wanted to lock himself up. There were helicopters overhead, but no one seemed to notice him.
“The best moment was when I got myself locked up and I saw a Mulnomah County Sheriff’s deputy walking across the bridge who hadn’t noticed me yet,” Majure says. “I had to kinda wave up at him and say ‘hi’ and I could see him be like, ‘aw, damn.'”
Andersen says one possibility for Majure’s defense is that “there’s an evil that he’s trying to fight that’s bigger than the evil he’s accused of.”
Majure says that even though the Fennica escaped Portland, the protest and blockade were a resounding success.
“It’s a huge victory for direct action around the world,” he says. “It was amazing the number of people who came out with their families in support and also the number of people who thought about what was going on and decided this was a cause they would be willing to be arrested for.”
Several local news outlets were present following Majure’s arraignment, but he was most excited about one particular shout out he got: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
“My parents probably aren’t the most happy with me right now,” he says. “But after being on the Rachel Maddow show maybe they’ll be a little less mad at me.”
I am proud to know ya
Yes all oil companies are evil, and yes these sorts of direct action activities guarantee media coverage of whatever issue is being protested, but the message always seems to get lost and the protesters end up looking like self-involved assholes.
If you want to engage in this type of performance art, please try to have some kind of positive thing to say that the average Joe can understand, like “Hey ppl, let’s use less oil or something!”, and then provide alternatives to not using oil. Or better yet, forget the protesting and work on encouraging and facilitating average joes to adopt alternative energy. Now that would be direct action!
I am so very tired of any people acting as Martyrs, whether I agree with them ideologically or not.
More often than not, they are what is wrong in society.
Jonah Majure has been a thoughtful organizer and contributor to environmental activism in our town for many years now. He’s such a boyscout! Also shy and retiring. I did not know it was possible to like and admire him more than we already did. He should run for office. He has integrity and intelligence.
Are Intel and Apple evil? They both build products based on oil. Do you drive a car or ride in a bus, also evil by extension? The biggest evil to mankind in the near term would be to shut down oil companies but those without a brain refuse to acknowledge that. Here’s a question – how do the greenpeace protesters power their boats to protest whaling and drilling?
So he is all about self-sacrifice and direct action and stuff, but he is still concerned about what his parents think? Not grown up yet.
All you people suck. These corporations are buying up the entire planet for profit, and you think you’re so cool and subversive for dissing people that put their LIVES, not just their jobs and freedom on the line to bring this into the global arena. Go suck down another 15 PBR s and let the grownups talk.
Aurelius, if you don’t own energy stocks and at least one water-rights corporation, coke, nestle, whatever, you’re technically not a grownup.
I’ve had Coca cola stock since 1988. Gift from my grandma. Coke is it!
This kid seems sincere and definitely has guts!