By Ryan Fatica
Tucson, AZ — The morning commute was pure chaos for Raytheon employees and others reporting for work at the University of Arizona (UA) Tech Park on Thursday, November 30 as over 100 people participated in a blockade and rally at the facility. The action was organized to highlight weapons manufacturer Raytheon and the University of Arizona’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza by creating munitions used to indiscriminately bomb civilian populations.
Beginning around 7:30 a.m., about 30 protesters went inside the grounds of the Tech Park campus, blockading both entrances to the Raytheon facility for about an hour and a half as workers zoomed in and out of the crowds staged at various entrances, desperately seeking a way to get to work.
Some Raytheon workers drove off road or over large curbs in their trucks to pass the ‘soft blockades’. Others slowly drove their vehicles into the crowd while others yelled obscenities and revved their engines threateningly. The crowd largely held their ground; a few passersby also cheered.
The blockaders linked arms behind ladders, cinder blocks and other debris they had piled in the road as they jumped out of trucks earlier that morning, quickly setting up about 100 yards in front of the guard station at Raytheon’s east entrance.
Protesters at Raytheon’s west entrance were able to drive their vehicles past the Raytheon check-point to set up another blockade there. The second group then linked arms, blocking the road until Sheriff’s deputies arrived to remove them one-by-one.
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