Thirty-three people were arrested and more than 60 police officers stood by with rifles and K-9s as a few dozen protesters chanted Wednesday outside the Niles offices of Woodward, Inc., which manufactures guidance systems for missiles and bombs, according to its website.
As a helicopter flew overhead, protesters beat a drum, chanted slogans and contended Woodward is making components of the bombs being used on Gaza, according to information from a U.S.-based nonprofit group, they said. Police blocked off a section of Howard Street between Caldwell and Lehigh Avenues in Niles, a normally quiet industrial area, for several hours, preventing traffic and employees from getting in and out of businesses there.
Woodward, Inc. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jinan Chehade of Chicago, one of the protest organizers, said the group gathered at 6 a.m. when Woodward workers’ shifts started and tried to block employees and deliveries from getting in.
About 100 people of various ages and ethnicities, from a collaboration of organizations, joined the protest at some point, Chehade said.
More than 27,000 people have died in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began Oct. 7, according to the Associated Press.
“This is important because when we see news on TV, it’s easy to construe it as a faraway war, but the bombs being dropped on Gaza are made in our backyard,” Chehade said.
“We shut down Woodward for seven hours today to stop the production of CAS (control actuation systems), which are a part of the bombs being used on Gaza, and show it’s not business as usual when genocide is going on.
“We demand Woodward ends its contracts with Boeing and weapons sales to Israel.”
Niles police said in a news release that the protest began around 6 a.m. and that seven men and 26 women were arrested for unlawful assembly, processed and released, and that the streets were reopened at 12:31 p.m.
Several protesters had bound themselves to each other using PVC pipe, chicken wire and duct tape and sat in the roadway blocking traffic and creating a hazard on Croname Street and Howard Street, the release said, while other participants verbally agitated law enforcement and first responders.
Chehade said Niles police were releasing those arrested around 2 to 2:30 p.m. Organizers had food and water ready for those arrested as they walked out of the police station, she said.
Nour Jaghama, the Palestinian coordinator for CodePink, which she described as a feminist antiwar nonprofit organization, said a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy nonprofit organization called the Adalah Justice Project demonstrated Woodward’s involvement after it took and circulated on Instagram a photo of a part found on the ground in Gaza that had the Woodward logo along with some bar codes for a serial number and part number.
Another protester, Mahmoud Awad of Chicago, said, “We’re not targeting the employees of Woodward. We’re not saying they’re bad people. We want them to know what kind of a company they’re working for.
“Our goal is to get this out in the media and the public, to disrupt the manufacturing and to get a message across to them. And for people to know this is in Niles–a lot of people who live here might not know this is in their hometown.”
By midmorning, dozens of police had confined about 20 protesters to a section of Croname Street, just south of Howard Street. Protesters, some of whom wore keffiyeh scarves, a Palestinian symbol, unfurled a banner about 18 feet in width that said “Woodward makes bombs for genocide.” Another carried a “Ceasefire now” sign.
Police moved the protesters to Howard Street, where another group of about 10 protesters were holding signs, then moved the protesters east on Howard Street.
The Niles Police news release said the department notified the NIPAS Mobile Field Force, a police mutual aid system, and many other departments arrived on the scene. They included police from Norridge, Glenview, Evanston, Des Plaines, Gurnee, Golf and North Riverside, as indicated by police vehicles on Howard Street.
