‘Raging Grannies’ Arrested: Elderly Protesters Bound Together So Arrest Would Be Hard For Police

Five members of Seattle’s activist group Raging Grannies were arrested by police Tuesday morning outside Terminal 5. Five members of the group were demonstrating against Shell’s offshore oil rig that was being prepared for drilling at the terminal.

The elderly ladies literally had a few “tricks up their sleeves” to make it hard for police to remove them from the terminal. The women seen in long skirts and sun hats were bound together with “sleeping dragons.” They were “makeshift sleeves constructed with materials designed to make their removal difficult and time-consuming,” the Seattle Times reports.

Not lacking in creativity, the Raging Grannies chained their wooden rocking chairs together on the BNSF Railway tracks below an overpass where younger protesters were located with oil drums. The ladies were also bound together by homemade arm sleeves.

Seattle Police Lieutenant Jim Arata ordered the younger protesters to move their oil drums and leave the overpass above Terminal 5, or they’d be arrested. The police department’s Apparatus Response Team (ART) had a truck full of saws, jackhammers, and other major tools on-hand in case the protesters were chained to the oil drums. When the team showed up with all of this, the younger protesters got up and walked away. The five grannies remained put, standing their ground despite facing arrest.

Members of the ART team spent about 10 minutes sawing and cutting into two separate “sleeping dragons” that connected the five grannies together by the arms. The Raging Grannies were covered with fireproof blankets so they’d be protected from flying debris while ART tried prying the women apart. The team had to break through rebar, metal, burlap, and rope before the grannies were freed from the restraints.

While the ART team worked, about 30 protesters nearby sang, “rock on, grannies,” in support of their cause.

“They’re meant to slow us down and defeat us,” Arata said about the Raging Grannies’ attempts to make their job difficult.

A photo showing what police had to deal with during their arrest of the grannies can be seen on SF Gate.

The oldest of the Raging Grannies arrested was 92. All five were arrested for investigation of obstruction and pedestrian interference. They were processed and released soon after the arrest.

BNSF spokesman Gun Melonas said that due to the protests, trains were held up and unable to move between 6:30 a.m. until about 10 a.m.

According to ShellNo! Action Council spokeswoman Stina Janssen, the women were trying to “block work Tuesday in order to stop Shell drilling’s oil rig from going out on time.”

ShellNo! is an organization opposed to Shell’s offshore Arctic oil-drilling fleet. Janssen says that the Raging Grannies who were arrested want to stop Arctic drilling and keep “our planet inhabitable for future generations.”

[Photo By Rafe Swan/Getty Images]