Fur Free Friday in New Jersey

By Amy Halbohm

EATONTOWN, NJ -- On Friday, November 29, 1996, Mike, Dari and I locked down in front of the Macy's fur salon in the Monmouth Mall. For only a week, we practiced and planned, and seemed to pull it off rather well considering our time restraints. The lock-down was only brought up as an idea shortly before Fur Free Friday, so we had to act fast.

Thinking that we'd have four people to do the action, I bought four locks, assuming that would have been enough if we linked them together in a certain way. We figured it would be harder for us to be cut apart if we didn't have a separate U-lock to link us all together. Luckily (sort of), we ended up with only the three of us, and realized we'd need all four to lock down.

We got standard U-locks made by Schwinn for about $20 a piece, but scraped off the brand name before we went so as not to advertise for the company, had we gotten on TV......which we didn't. We found these locks to be inadequate. The police couldn't cut them with regular bolt cutters, but when the fire department got to the scene, they needed only to use larger bolt cutters and we were out.

But before I continue, let me say that we practiced so well that we made it to the floor within five seconds. What we did was that we had about 30 other protesters who would be doing a protest on that floor of the mall simultaneously. I gave Janine a signal to start chanting by bending down to tie my shoe. This would create a diversion while we got our locks into place. Lest we forget, Billy was there to hold out the middle lock while we all locked onto it.

So, after being cut from each other, we were taken to police cars in handcuffs. Our support people (the protesters) cheered us on as we were hauled off, and followed us to the station. There, we answered identity questions and such, and got our fingerprints and mug shots taken. All the while at the station, we were allowed to walk around in the room where we were getting processed, which meant they weren't really afraid of us. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Finally, we were released after about an hour and no talk of bail. Our court date is scheduled for January 9, 1996 at 11am at the Eatontown Municipal Court. We will be refusing fines and probation, so if we don't get community service, we will hunger strike in jail. We'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.