Protesters question arrests, imminent construction

At 5 a.m. Friday, they came out in droves, a single cause uniting their raised voices. By 11 a.m. they toted bullhorns and cameras, their demonstration peaceful yet persistent. \nYoung and old alike they gathered, offering encouragement and support as the sun beat down unforgivingly at high noon. One fair-haired toddler moved aimlessly about, pausing occasionally to add a high-pitched protest to the melee. \nAnd at nearly 1 p.m., they watched as state police drove two of their own away in handcuffs. Police forcibly removed Ruth Hannah and Megan Hise from their position of protest, locked around a tree in the woods surrounding the Basswood apartment complex off S.R. 37., further fueling the crowd's angry cries. \nThey compose part of what a protester who identified himself as "Truth" terms a "large network of people dedicated to saving the earth." They gathered Friday to protest the development of the woods near Basswood for additional apartment complexes. \n"This is an injustice to me as a citizen of this city," claimed Bloomington native and IU student Myra Swoape. "Bloomington doesn't want this."\nSwoape, whose parents are environmental activists, claims she was raised to embrace nature, to support and give back to the earth. The message developers are sending to the community, she said, is that they "just don't care."\nTo overpower that message, Swoape said, Bloomington needs a plan and a mayor who respects green space. \n"I want my offspring to have trees and air to breathe," she said. "This is a time of crisis -- I'd say we have 20 years to get everything back together."\nLisa Hopwood, a friend of Swoape's and an IU student, said the privately owned land is considered to have the largest concentration of sinkholes in the city. She doesn't want to be responsible for "fixing their (developers') mistakes" if the building's foundations begin to crumble, she said. \nTruth deemed the development a continuation of the "urban sprawl" threatening to envelop Bloomington. He arrived at the tree-sitting at 6 a.m. \nHe thinks older, vacant buildings in town should be razed to make room for projects such as the Canterbury development. Homes in older, more run-down areas should be renovated, he said, before constructing totally new facilities. \n"This doesn't need to happen," Truth said. "This is a beautiful shaded area -- but profit is coming before people and the earth."\nHopwood agreed. \n"Money won out over the environment," she said. "We're paying taxes so they don't have to pay interest on their land"