By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
More than 40 people were arrested as anti-war protesters again tried to block shipments of military gear to a local US Army brigade, even pouring cement on railroad tracks in a failed effort to stop trains.
Police wearing riot gear fired pepper spray projectiles into a crowd of more than 150 protesters Tuesday night at the Port of Olympia, and several military convoys eventually moved out.
Olympia police spokesman Dick Machlan said 43 people were arrested and then released while prosecutors decide whether to charge them.
Andrew Yankey, a spokesman for the anti-war Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the demonstrators were not protesting the soldiers, who had recently returned from Iraq, but the equipment that he said likely will be shipped to war again.