SWAMPSCOTT — Eight climate-change protesters were arrested Tuesday morning outside Gov. Charlie Baker’s Monument Avenue home. Seven of the people taken into custody had chained themselves “sleeping-dragon style” to a boat and the eighth person was on top of the boat, State Police said.
The eight defendants — Alexander Chambers, 23, of Boylston; James Comiskey, 31, of Somerville; Gerard Frank, 67, of Dudley; Gregory Margan, 69, of Somerville; Nora Maynard, 38, of Turners Falls; Allen McGonagill, 32, of Somerville; Dylan Sessler, 27, of Hampstead; and Jennifer Smith, 47, of Watertown — were arraigned in Lynn District Court Tuesday afternoon on one count each of disorderly conduct and trespassing.
District Court Judge Jean Curran released all eight defendants on their own recognizance — meaning no bail was required — with the conditions that they stay 100 yards away from the governor’s house, have no direct contact with Baker, and do not block the driveway or roadway on Monument Avenue in Swampscott, according to the Essex County District Attorney’s office.
Baker’s office has not released a statement about the protest and it has not been confirmed if Baker was in his home at the time of the protest.
The groups behind this protest, Extinction Rebellion Boston and Sunrise Movement Boston, said their aim was to put Baker under a “citizen’s arrest” for “climate and environmental-justice crimes.”
“What we are really down here for is (be)cause of Gov. Baker’s climate crimes against BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, (and) people of color communities,” said Susan Lemont, a protester for Extinction Rebellion Boston.
Lemont pointed to projects across the commonwealth that show Baker’s poor environmental work. The group is opposed to the East Boston electrical substation that the group alleges could cause flooding concerns. They believe that the substation should be moved to Logan Airport in order to protect residents.
State Police spokesman David Procopio said several protesters began to block the public roadway at approximately 7 a.m. by chaining themselves to a large boat — which read “climate emergency” — that they had trailered to the front of Baker’s home.
“State Police responded and issued orders for the protesters to unchain themselves and disperse,” said Procopio in a statement. “When they refused and continued obstructing traffic, troopers specially trained in civil-disturbance response cut the devices by holding the protesters to the boat and took them into custody.”
The boat was removed from the roadway, Procopio said.
State Police Sgt. Karl Johnson said in his report — which was obtained from Lynn District Court — that when State Police arrived on the scene at 7 a.m. there were already other police officers there. He wrote that residents had been concerned about the police presence, which resulted from a large number of protesters in front of Baker’s home.
While a group of six protesters standing in the street, and not attached to the boat, dispersed when asked to by responding officers, another group of protesters who had chained themselves “sleeping-dragon style” to the boat did not leave upon command, Johnson wrote.
This group refused to disperse, even after being told that they would be arrested for refusing the order, Johnson wrote. In his report, he explained a sleeping-dragon chain is usually fashioned from a length of PVC or steel pipe, in which a person utilizes a rope or chain with a climbing type of carabiner. Attached individuals hold onto the carabiner and connect inside the pipe with their arms inside; the carabiners are usually non-locking and they are free to unlock themselves, he wrote.
When the protesters refused to release themselves to the boat, the State Police Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) members arrived with special equipment and cut each protester from the sleeping dragon, taking great lengths to protect the protesters’ eyes and heads during the cutting, Johnson wrote.
Jeffrey Feuer, the defense attorney representing the eight defendants, said during the arraignment that his clients had the right to continue protesting peacefully. He said that because Baker holds business meetings in his home, it was appropriate for members of the Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement to protest there.
“They have a constitutional right to petition their government and to practice free speech,” said Feuer, who is on the board of directors for the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild Defense Committee, which is a network of attorneys who represent political activists.
Extinction Rebellion Boston is part of an international organization protesting how governments are handling climate change. Founded in 2018 in the United Kingdom, the group has a presence in 84 countries.
Sunrise Movement is a national political-action organization founded in 2017 in Washington, D.C. It focused on electing advocates of renewable energy to the U.S. Congress in 2018. Since then, the organization says it has used peaceful protests, such as the 2020 sit-in at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, to garner support for renewable energy.
On Tuesday, Extinction Rebellion Boston was also protesting for the shutdown of the Weymouth Compressor Station, which has had multiple failures. For the North Shore, the group was demanding that an environmental-impact report and community-health-impact assessment be conducted to ensure that the proposed peaker plant in Peabody won’t result in excessive damage to the environment.
“Baker claims to be leading on environmental issues, but these projects clearly show that he is not,” said McGonagill, a protester who locked himself onto the boat. “He talks a big game, but what has he really done in his seven years in office? Nothing that wasn’t mandated by the legislature. Now we only have seven years left for climate action. His corporate ties are more important than public health and safety.”
Lemont said that the state legislature has had to press Baker to start working on environmental issues.
By the deadlines he has set, “we will all be underwater by then,” said Lemont.
Despite the arrests, Swampscott Police Sgt. Jay Locke, a spokesman for the department, said that overall, the protest was a peaceful one.
“It was pretty docile, as far as the activity they were doing,” said Locke. “They were just shackled to the trailer on the boat.”
A pre-trial conference for the eight defendants has been scheduled for Nov. 4.
