Six arrests for line crossing at Kansas City nuclear plant

Posted on May 21, 2025

Photo by Jim Hannah

from PeaceWorks Kansas City

‘No new nukes!’ say resisters at Kansas City nuke plant

by Jane Stoever

Twenty-three peacemakers resisted nuclear weapons at dawn on May 19. Our signs, made May 18, declared, “No new nukes!” and “Stop escalating nuclear War!”

Why hold signs at dawn? That’s when workers come to make 80% of the electrical and mechanical parts for the nation’s nuclear arsenal at the Kansas City National Security Campus. In our backyard. In the heartland of America, the womb of U.S. nukes.

A few thousand workers drove past our signs into work. To our surprise, we got six honks for peace. Yes! And after six of us crossed the purple line marking the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) property, we chatted there with NNSA guards and Kansas City, Missouri  police.

Photo by Jim Hannah

Mike Miles, of Anathoth Catholic Worker near Luck, Wisconsin, said the guards and police told him they felt they were peacemakers and appreciated our also being peacemakers. Mike made clear he had opposed nuclear weapons many times. He told the police and guards, “I hope there doesn’t need to be a next time (for a protest of this plant)—I hope everyone comes to their senses” and the plant closes. The guards and police replied they’d probably see us again. Mike mentioned we were no longer in the age of MAD, mutually assured destruction, meaning, “We’ll destroy you, and you’ll destroy us, and everybody loses.” Mike said we’re in a time of “counter force,” where making pre-emptive strikes against command and control centers and hitting weapons before they are launched are actually policy. The police and guards agreed but noted that, in their opinion, the U.S. was the least likely of nuclear weapon states to initiate first use. Mike replied that, indeed, the U.S. was in the most likely position to think they could execute a successful first strike. One of the officers or guards mentioned such an action would be a fulfillment of the Revelations depiction of holocaust – suggesting this is inevitable so it is folly to try to stop it. Instead, Mike said he thought the predominant message of Jesus was “love one another, as I have loved you,” and he said the police and guards then agreed that love is indeed the answer. That afternoon, Mike said to another line-crosser, “So Jesus wants both love and holocaust? This is where Christian nationalism falls apart and becomes blasphemy. We really have our work cut out for us!”

PeaceWorks Kansas City gives special thanks to Cherith Brook Catholic Worker House for providing meals and meeting space to make our signs and prepare for our event. And we offer sincere gratitude to Jerusalem Farm for providing lodging and meals for our hungry protestors. We were indeed blessed, nourished, supported and loved by our dear friends.

The line-crossers received tickets for arraignments June 25 and 27, and may have more information later on changes in follow-up to the resistance. One strange detail is that each person’s ticket has the same case number. Stay tuned to find out whether we indeed proceed to court or not. 

One feature of our preparatory day, May 18, was a 2-hour session, “Back from the Brink” of nuclear destruction — during which we heard leaders in this national movement, via zoom. PeaceWorks Chairperson Dave Pack said PeaceWorks would help contact city councils and U.S. congressional representatives to seek support for House Resolution 317, presenting the key objectives of “Back from the Brink.” For more info, email Dave Pack at djpack.12645@gmail.com. 

–Writer Jane Stoever was one of the line-crossers at the 5/19 protest. (c) 2025, Jane Stoever, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

From Brian Terrell:

At dawn on Monday, May 19, 23 activists greeted workers arriving for the early shift at the Kansas City National Security Campus. The KCNSC is a National Nuclear Security Administration facility managed and operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies that makes 80 percent of the electrical and mechanical parts for the US’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal.
At present, the KCNSC is participating in seven “modernization programs” of land, air and sea based nuclear weapons, including the newly accelerated production of the B61-13 gravity bomb, 25 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima and more flexible and precise than earlier versions.
With more than 7,000 employees, the KCNSC is undergoing a construction project that will double its size. A banner on the gate of the construction site reads “Safe, efficient and timely delivery of KC next critical infrastructure,” celebrating several contractors’ contributions to a mad rush to produce more powerful and easier to use nuclear bombs.

In anticipation to the protest, the “campus” security closed the plant’s main gate, diverting workers to another entrance. After the morning rush, six of the activists, Ann Suellentrop of Kansas City, KS, Henry Stoever of Overland Park, KS, Mike Miles of Luck, WI, Brian Terrell of Maloy, IA, Jane Stoever of Overland Park, KS, and Brother Louis Rodemann of Kansas City, MO, took their protest onto the KCNSC. The six were placed under arrest by officers of the Federal Protection Force who turned them over to the Kansas City Police Department. They were cited for alleged violations of local ordinances and released with orders to appear in court next month.

My comments to questions from Liz Wade of “Jaws of Justice” on KKFI Community Radio, 90.1 FM, at the Kansas City National Security Campus on Monday morning:
“I have been coming here to the Kansas City National Security Campus for years and to various other places like it. This is a key time and this place represents the danger that we are in. I fully expect to be arrested this morning, but I am not breaking the law. Classic civil disobedience is about breaking an unjust law, but the trespass law is not the issue. We are here to address horrendous crimes against humanity committed in this place in violation of international and domestic law with impunity and when they arrest us, the police are arresting the wrong people! With these weapons made here, the whole concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’ has become history. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff are now talking about winning a nuclear war. President Biden had a secret study that was leaked some months ago saying that the United States should be prepared to fight and win simultaneously two nuclear wars with Russia and with China and nobody thought that way before. Mutually assured destruction was a horrible way to make peace- President Eisenhower said it was humanity nailed to a cross of iron, but we didn’t blow ourselves up. They have just announced that they are accelerating the production of a new bomb, the B61-13 with 25 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb and more flexible than any bombs they’ve had before. It wasn’t scheduled to be done so soon, but they are speeding it up due to the tension in the world in order to give President Trump the option of using them and there will be 50 of them made by the end of this year. If we keep going this way, there’s no chance for humanity. We have to make this change and abolish nuclear weapons now. We here in this protest are making a small contribution toward that!”

Photo by Jim Hannah