BOSTON (AP) - Members of an activist group hung a banner that read “CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW” on the iconic Citgo sign near Boston’s Fenway Park, leading to eight arrests, police said.
The group unfurled the banner Monday evening as the Red Sox began their game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway. A spokesman for the group, Extinction Rebellion Boston, told The Boston Globe that it was hoping to bring attention to environmental issues.
“We think the ultimate values of the city of Boston would say climate justice is more important than fossil fuel profits,” Matthew Kearney said. “We’re giving the Citgo sign a makeover - just temporary, of course - an update to the Boston skyline that matches the values of the city.”
Police said they received multiple 911 calls about the group, who entered a construction site and got to the roof of the building to hang the banner.
The eight people were taken into custody and charged with trespassing and disturbing the peace, police said. Two others were summoned to court for the same charges, police said.
Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said the arrested activists are due back in Boston Municipal Court on Aug. 26. She said a judge postponed their arraignments Tuesday because her office requested more time to the consider the case.
Rollins acknowledged her office, as a policy, has declined to prosecute the kinds of low level crimes the activists face, but said prosecutors will also be taking into account other factors, including “all of the risks it created, and the costs that the City of Boston incurred as a result” of the protest.
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