PITTSBURGH -- An Internet list includes names of businesses, government buildings and university structures around Pittsburgh that protesters apparently plan to illegally target during the G-20 summit, Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons reported.
Many of the 100 sites are in the East Liberty, Shadyside, Oakland and Lawrenceville neighborhoods, away from the site of the global economic summit, which will conclude Friday at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center downtown.
Video - Watch The Team 4 Report By Jim ParsonsAnarchist protesters plan to spread out and target the locations on the list in something that's being called an "everywhere protest" on the morning of Sept. 25.
(Scroll down this page to see the full list. Street names were intentionally omitted by WTAE Channel 4 Action News.)"I was alerted by the state police that we were targeted as one of the many retail businesses to picket or protest against during the G-20 summit," said Eric Caplan, who owns a Petland store on the list.
Two grocery stores -- Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's -- are targets, as well as the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, a nonprofit organization for community improvement that helps buy and renovate homes.
"They would like a society where nobody owns property other than the state. Well, we're not in that game," said Rick Swartz, executive director of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation.
Victoria's Secret in Shadyside is also on the list of possible protest sites, although it's unclear what lingerie has to do with global politics.
"I think there's a rationale for each of them," said Noah Williams, of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project. "What people who show up at those sites choose to do and why they're there will be up to those individual people."
Cheerleaders Gentlemen's Club in the Strip District is among a handful of strip clubs on the list.
"I'm not too worried about it," Cheerleaders manager Drew Haugh said. "I mean, we run a legit business. Straight up. If the protesters want to protest, they're going to protest. So if they're thirsty, maybe they'll stop in for a drink. I don't know. Or we can send some girls out maybe to them."
The "everywhere protest" target list also includes banks, armed forces recruiting centers, police stations and several locations on the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
The Web site for the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project invites anarchists to be heard by choosing a location and protesting there.
"The G-20 is doing the same thing on a global level that a lot of the corporations that have bases or branches here are doing on a local level. We would like to draw those connections on Friday," Williams said.
Activity can start at any time on the day of the protest, but each individual protest is being planned to end exactly at 11:30 a.m., coinciding with the conclusion of the G-20 summit.
The Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation has already seen the work of anarchists over the past few years.
"They had filled light bulbs -- hollowed-out light bulbs -- with dye, and they stood in front of our building and threw them up to the top of the building, so it would drizzle down," Swartz said.
UPDATE: Team 4's Paul Van Osdol went to the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project's headquarters in Greenfield for an interview on Monday.Video:
Watch Paul's ReportInside, people were busy painting protest signs. An anarchist flag was on display, along with plenty of phone numbers for ACLU lawyers in case anyone gets arrested and is taken to jail.
"The G-20, for us, is violence," Williams told Van Osdol. "The G-20 controls the world economy from behind closed doors. It puts in place free trade policies which mean people starve to death, which mean people die of preventable disease, which has certainly ruined our economy in town here."
The group itself claims to be nonviolent, although it says there may be other anarchist groups with a violent bent.
"Concerns about violence -- I feel like there's been a fixation in the media about violence that will lead to justifying in advance the police brutality that's being prepared for us," Williams told Van Osdol.
Still, members of the group are expecting arrests to be made, and police say the group may be inviting that by not seeking permits for a march on Thursday or mass protests on Friday.
"People have been followed to this space by unmarked police cars. People's homes have been staked out by vans full of police," Williams told Van Osdol.
A spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Police Bureau told Team 4 that anyone who marches without a permit could be arrested if he or she obstructs traffic or pedestrians.
"We didn't feel it was necessary to beg the people in power for the right to protest them," Williams said. "Instead, we want to build the power of the people to have a voice in the first place."
What follows is a list of the locations targeted by the online map mentioned above. (In some cases, multiple locations of the same business were mentioned). - Starbucks
- Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation
- Trader Joe's
- National Robotics Engineering Center
- Carnegie-Mellon University: Robotics Institute
- United States Government Department of Army: Recruiting
- U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting
- U.S. Air Force Recruiting
- Pittsburgh Police Station
- Gap
- Victoria's Secret
- Dollar Smart Check Cashing
- United Check Cashing
- Money Mart
- Ace Cash Express
- Advance America Cash Advance
- Mellon Institute of Industrial Research
- Rand Corporation
- Oakland Planning and Development Corporation
- Pet Land Village of Eastside
- Giant Eagle
- Whole Foods Market
- Walnut Capital Management
- Cheerleaders
- Cricket Lounge
- Blush
- PNC Bank
- The Skin Center Medical Spa
- Software Engineering Institute
- Fur Galleria
- McDonald's
- Colcom Foundation
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
- Rivers Casino
- X Shadyside
- American Apparel
- American Eagle Outfitters Inc
- Lawrenceville United Inc
- East Liberty Development, Inc.
- Biomedical Science Towers
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