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On September 20, 1988 Marcia Timmel, of the Plowshares #4, mother and member of the Olive Branch Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C., entered the Sheraton-Washington hotel in D.C. - site of the Air Force Association Arms Bazaar. Once inside she hammered and poured blood on a Textron Defense System (TDS) MX missile display, thereby dismantling it, and was subsequently arrested. She left at the site a statement decrying the blasphemous theme of the Arms Bazaar, "Freedom: A Creed To Believe In," and issued her own creed (credo) of life, faith and love for the human family. During her two-day jury trial in D.C. Superior Court she used promotional literature of TDS, producer of the MX, to demonstrate the clear intent of TDS and the Air Force to prevail on Congress for the deployment of 50 new MX missiles. "We’ve been making $200 million a year for the last 10 years on this," said a TDS employee. "She took that model down the first day of the exhibition and we couldn’t use it. She probably deprived us of a chance to persuade a couple members of Congress." Under the constraints of a jury instruction that relieved the government prosecution of the need to prove evil intent, the jury convicted Marcia on November 18, 1988 of property damage. On December 29, she was sentenced to 90 days; 83 days suspended pending completion of probation (90 days), and ordered to serve 7 days beginning January 9, 1989.
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