Plywood covered four of the picture windows in the Wells Fargo home mortgage office in Old Town Tacoma on Sunday. Inside a woman with a purple vacuum strapped to her back sucked shards from the carpet.
The vandalism of the storefront at 2215 N. 30th St. appears to be part of a larger social protest rather than a random act of mischief.
Vandals have targeted the San Francisco-based financial services company’s offices and ATMs in several states in opposition to its stake in The GEO Group – a private company that operates prisons including the Northwest Detention Center, a federal immigration lockup on the Tacoma Tideflats.
The News Tribune received an e-mail Saturday, claiming the weekend attack was "done in solidarity with the 13 people recently detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Shelton, WA and the people recently detained in San Francisco, CA." It’s not clear if any other local branches were hit, but the e-mail only mentioned one.
"They are blinded by their greed and will allow the most dreadful things to arise in their quest for profit," the e-mail continued. "… While the bankers count their money, the jailers in the detention center treat the people inside like subhumans." (The full e-mail is posted after the jump.)
Attempts to reach officials with Wells Fargo and GEO Group’s corporate offices Sunday were not successful. Tacoma police took a phone report on the incident, spokesman Mark Fulghum said.
Wells Fargo owns 8 percent of GEO Group’s stock, making it the third largest shareholder, according to federal Securities and Exchange Commission filings and fatpitch.biz, a Web site that compiles stock ownership information.
Wells Fargo held more than $51 million in GEO Group stock in its Advantage Small Cap Value fund at the end of September, according to the bank’s Web site.
In July, a study – released by the International Human Rights Clinic at Seattle University’s law school and the Seattle-based group OneAmerica, With Justice for All – alleged mistreatment at the Tacoma facility ranging from excessive strip searches and overcrowding to a lack of due process, the Associated Press reported.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement called the report "a work of fiction."
Throughout the summer vandals have smashed windows, spray painted polemics and destroyed cash machines at Wells Fargo branches in California, Oregon and Washington, according to the September/October issue of Earth First!
The article says a branch in Tacoma was hit June 10 and "stop prisons" was spray painted on the wall. An independent media Web site also listed an August attack in Minneapolis.
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