Students cited by police in Spring Break protest

While other ETSU students may have been sprawled on a beach, Ash-Lee Henderson and Daniel Maurer died, received citations and then were followed during their spring break by police officers with the Tennessee Valley Authority - in that order, and over a span of two days.
On March 14, Henderson and Maurer joined 12 other activists who staged a "die in" in front of the TVA towers in downtown Knoxville to protest the cradle to grave negative impact of coal in Appalachia.
"It was awesome," Henderson, a senior, said. "I came into Mountain Justice (Spring Break) knowing they had a direct action component."
Henderson said that the participants were informed there would be multiple levels of action, including the most high risk action: civil disobedience.
"I've taken part in other marches before ... but this was the first time I've taken part in actual civil disobedience, where I was issued a citation," said Maurer, a 27-year-old ETSU graduate student. "I felt like I did something good."
For their civil disobedience, the 14 protesters were issued citations by the Knoxville Police Department. Henderson and Maurer face fines of around $50.
"The United Mountain Defense is very proud of the adults who came to join us and stand in solidarity with communities everywhere who are impacted by the filthy life cycle of coal," said Bonnie Swinford, a board member and volunteer coordinator for the UMD.
UMD is a grassroots organization that has fought mountaintop removal and dirty coal in Tennessee since 2005. UMD created the protest as a way to end Mountain Justice Spring Break. Eight ETSU students attended as part of the university's "Alternative Spring Break" program.
The rally and march began in Market Square in downtown Knoxville, and featured numerous speakers and musicians. The group circled the TVA towers multiple times before the 14 activists, with Henderson and Maurer among them, spoke out on the reasons for their civil disobedience. Then, wearing masks to symbolize the dirty, suffocating nature of coal, they crossed the street. One activist yelled, "TVA is killing us!"
What Henderson remembers after that is coughing and falling to the ground.
However, being issued citations was not the only out-of-ordinary experience the group of ASB participants from ETSU had.
The following day the students were taken by activist Matt Landon Jones to the coal ash spill site. They visited a church in the Swan Pond community of Harrimon, Tenn., that was devastated by the spill.
Students were encouraged by Landon to wear masks, due to the minute particles still left in the air from the spill. The group brought along cameras to video and photograph the scene.
At the site, they were followed by TVA police officers. The interaction between students and officers is documented on YouTube. At the first site, an officer asked them to approach.
The officer never identified himself, never asked the students to identify themselves and never asked the students to leave the private property they were on. After a brief questioning he returned to his SUV and drove away.
After the students left the first site, they traveled to a second location where they had permission to view the coal ash disaster site from private property.
That's when they saw two TVA police vehicles were parked behind the van. The SUV's drove away without stopping or making contact with the group of students.
That evening, a TVA police officer contacted ETSU Public Safety, and a report was filed. The TVA officer stated that students were protesting on TVA property and that the students ran when the officer approached.
"The overall sentiment of the group is that we were being harrassed by TVA," Henderson said. "They were trying to intimidate us."
As of Wednesday, March 18, TVA had issued no public statement on the protest or citations.
"It's not over yet," Maurer said. "There may be future actions. It's all dependent on what TVA does, or the state does."
Most of all, Maurer said he and others with UMD would like to see a switch to renewable energy, rather than the creation of more coal plants or nuclear energy facilities.