Officers worked for hours Monday to unchain protesters as they occupied the property of a private prison company's corporate headquarters, shutting down Nashville-based CoreCivic's office building for the day.
As of Monday afternoon, the Metro Nashville Police Department had arrested at least 19 of the few dozen protesters on trespassing charges, some of whom had locked themselves to cement-filled barrels to block parking garage entrances to the office.
"We have no intention of leaving," said the Rev. Jeannie Alexander from No Exceptions Prison Collective. "It's a nonviolent, peaceful resistance."
Alexander said protesters "do not recognize this as private property," claiming the protesters by their actions had appropriated the grounds for the people of Tennessee.
Alexander was later arrested and carried away, being loaded into a police van by her hands and feet.
