Protesters douse Wall Street bull with fake blood

Scenes from Extinction Rebellion protests in New York City

by Justine Calma

Oct 7, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

Justine Calma is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home, a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals.

Wall Street’s Charging Bull statue was doused in fake blood this morning by environmental protestors. A woman with the group Extinction Rebellion stood atop the bloodied bull waving the group’s green flag; other protesters, also splattered with the red liquid, staged a sit-in around the statue. The New York City Police Department arrested roughly 20 people there.

“I am sick and tired of going to school and not seeing a future.”

The day of protests began with a staged funeral march from nearby Battery Park to the bull statue. Demonstrators mostly wore funeral black, but some participants who called themselves the “Red Brigade” wore scarlet robes. The robes, they said, represented the blood of all species facing extinction as a result of climate change. It’s all part of coordinated protests taking place today across 60 cities around the world.

The protestors were at Wall Street because they feel that Wall Street has valued fossil fuels more highly than human life, said 20-year-old Ayisha Siddiqa, a youth coordinator for Extinction Rebellion in New York City. “I am sick and tired of going to school and not seeing a future.”

“We believe that cultural institutions must declare climate and ecological emergencies” stated a pamphlet distributed near the Red Brigade, a group of performers who gathered with other protestors in lower Manhattan as part of Extinction Rebellion, a group who organized mass protests around the world on Monday, October 7th.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge