East Bay Commuters: Friday Morning BART Protest Closes Some SF Stations

BART’s Embarcadero station in San Francisco has now been closed by protests but the Montgomery station has reopened, BART officials said.

Shortly before 7:30 a.m. the crowd of protesters who had gathered on the Montgomery station platform began to ascend to street level and announced plans to march to Embarcadero station.

The protesters, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and clinking their metal spoons against the ground, pillars and trains, began to file off the platform, carrying signs.

One sign had the word “Justice” scrawled in blood-red paint and another was adorned with photos of those who had recently been killed by law enforcement.

[Previous: BART Commuter Alert: Trains Not Stopping At Montgomery and Heads Up, BART Commuters: Friday Protest Could Disrupt Service.]

Trains had not been stopping at Montgomery since shortly after the protest began, but as of 7:45 a.m. trains were stopping there again, according to BART officials.

Hundreds of protesters gathered below street level at the station around 7 a.m.

When a train approaching from the East Bay pulled up to the station and did not open it’s doors to let passengers out, protesters began clinking metal spoons against the metal pillars in the station.

A loud clanging sound, resulting from hundreds of people with spoons hitting metal, could be heard across the station beginning around 7:10 a.m. At least one protester has been arrested.

A male protester was detained and dragged off the platform by BART police at about 7:15 a.m.

BART and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency warned riders that the protest could disrupt service. The protest is planned as part of a weekend-long direct series of action events ending in a March in Oakland on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Protesters have released demands ahead of the demonstrations including for BART to drop all charges against the “Black Friday 14,” a group of 14 activists arrested for chaining themselves to a BART train at the West Oakland Station on Nov. 28.

The protesters are calling for “No Business as Usual” at BART.

--Bay City News

--PHOTOS BY HANNAH ALBARAZI

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