Two arrested at Lockheed Martin
from Paul Sheldon:
At noon on a hot August 6, Hiroshima Day 2026, a faithful group of Brandywine Peace Community assembled at the main entrance of the Lockheed Martin facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Our signs made clear to the passing traffic why we were there — this was the site of the world’s largest nuclear contractor and war profiteer. After a shortened program (in deference to extreme weather), Paul Sheldon and Christopher Spicer walked onto Lockheed Martin property and were arrested for trespassing. While hoping to be able to walk to the entrance of the facility, Paul delivered his copy of the U. N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to the arresting officers instead.
from C.R. Spicer:
At noon on August 6, in heat index values of 100 degrees, six people gathered at the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania facility of Lockheed Martin to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and rebuke Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest war profiteer.
The 38th consecutive witness to mourn the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the urgency of abolishing nuclear weapons. They waved peace flags, carried protest signs, and tolled the historic peace bell of the Brandywine Peace Community.
”We are dying,” said Robert Smith, co-founder and coordinator of the Brandywine Peace Community. Since 1978, he has co-organized protests at the King of Prussia site. “Everybody that made up Brandywine Peace Comunity is dying. I have Parkinsons and wondering when I’m going to go.”
In particular, attendees marked the absence of plowshare priest Fr. Pat Sieber, OFM. “He was very much apart of the witness over the past 40 years at the King of Prussia Lockheed Martin site,” Smith said, who was arrested with Paul Sheldon and Fr. Sieber at the King of Prussia site on the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima. Participants Bill Hartman and Christopher Spicer attended a memorial mass for Fr. Sieber held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Camden, New Jersey before the program.
Following the program, two crossed onto Lockheed Martin property to deliver their message to the company’s employees. Both were cited for trespassing. Paul Sheldon of Lansdowne Meeting and Media, Pennsylvania was arrested attempting to deliver to workers a copy of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). He gave the copy to their head of security instead. Christopher Spicer, father of three, was arrested with a poster of a Hiroshima child.
Spicer is from the Paulist Center of Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts, where the State Senate, on the final day of the term August 2, passed S.3247, the Back from the Brink (BftB) resolution declaring support for the TPNW, now awaiting passage in the House to catch up the California, Oregon, Rhode Island legislatures and the Maine Senate and the New Jersey Assembly. In 2018, Somerville City Councilor Mark Niedergang helped Spicer carry forward a BftB resolution to add Somerville among the first U.S. cities dedicated to prevent nuclear war.
Chief among U.S. war contractors, Lockheed Martin is developing and building Trump’s “Golden Dome,” a multi-billion-dollar Star Wars continental defense system, at the King of Prussia site, and their sibling sites across the country. The Congressional Budget Office reported in May 2026 that it will cost $1.2 trillion to develop, deploy, and operate over 20 years, previously described as costing $175 billion over time.
Links:
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2026-05/62379-golden-dome.pdf
