East Village Activist Rev. Billy Arrested for Dumping Pile of Dirt at Chase Bank Updated April 6, 2010 12:34pm

Rev. Billy stands outside the Chase bank branch in Astor Place Sunday after dumping a pile of dirt in the ATM vestibule in protest of the company's involvement in coal mining. (Flickr/Rev Billy & The Church of Life After Shopping)

By Patrick Hedlund

DNAinfo News Editor

Police arrested rabble-rousing anti-corporate activist Rev. Billy on Sunday for dumping a pile of dirt in an East Village bank branch to protest the company’s involvement in coal-mining operations.

Rev. Billy, real name Bill Talen, took to a series of Chase banks with his costumed choir in tow to place a “holy hex” on the company for allegedly funding companies responsible for mountaintop mining in the U.S., the Courthouse News Service reported.

The activist and formal mayoral candidate performed the same ceremonial-style act without incident in the ATM vestibule of a Chase bank on 10th Street and Second Avenue last month. He was arrested at the branch in Astor Place on Easter Sunday only after refusing to remove the mud mound under police orders.

“We didn’t know and didn’t go in anticipating [an arrest] one way or another,” said Talen, who has led numerous public demonstrations in the past, including another dirt-piling at a Chase branch on Second Avenue at St. Mark’s Place just before his arrest.

“I know that the Astor Place Chase is much more prominent, and it’s a location where Rev. Billy’s been traditionally taken from to various holding tanks.”

Talen and advocates have targeted JPMorgan Chase for financing 80 percent of mountaintop strip-mining in the Appalachians, he said, a controversial practice that involves removing entire portions of mountaintops and ridges to access the underlying coal.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said he was aware of the protest but declined to comment on the situation.

At the Astor Place branch, a police officer gave Talen the opportunity to clean up the mess, and arrested him after the activist declined.

Talen said he was issued summonses for littering and disorderly conduct, and released without charges.

The NYPD had no record of the incident, a police source said.

Nonetheless, Talen explained he will continue to build his “lobby mountains” to raise awareness of the bank’s out-of-state actions, which he considers a local issue because of Chase’s prominence in the neighborhood.

“There’s a JPMorgan Chase with that sky-blue swastika on every corner,” he said. “We always start with what’s happening in our neighborhood. We certainly have what we call the ‘demon monoculture’ in our midst here."

By Patrick Hedlund, DNAinfo.com

Follow Patrick on Twitter @patrickhedlund