FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 29, 2026
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Sonoma County Announces May Day event at General Dynamics Facility
HEALDSBURG — CODEPINK Sonoma County announces a May Day event on May 1, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the General Dynamics facility located at 190 Foss Creek Circle in Healdsburg. Participants demand the facility's closure. The facility, part of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems division, is a major supplier of military ammunition and weapons systems used in U.S.-supported wars, resulting in civilian casualties in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
General Dynamics, the fifth-largest weapons manufacturer in the world, designs and manufactures weapons systems in Healdsburg, including guidance systems for 2,000-pound bombs that are used by the Israeli military against civilians. Additionally, the company has contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for surveillance technology that is used to monitor and surveil the U.S.-Mexico border and immigrant communities. General Dynamics is the only company in the U.S. that makes 155mm caliber artillery shells, which have been used extensively by Israel to attack Gaza. Their use by Israel, according to Oxfam, is “virtually assured to be indiscriminate, unlawful, and devastating to civilians in Gaza.”
CODEPINK organizer Cynthia Papermaster says, “General Dynamics enabled the murder of over 100 little girls in the February Tomahawk missile bombing of the school in Minab, Iran. General Dynamics’ website says ‘‘Tomahawk is the world’s most capable cruise missile, ideally suited for critical long-range, precision-strike missions against high-value, heavily defended targets…. We manufacture numerous critical metal components for the Tomahawk missile program.*" This is what GD does in Healdsburg. Those little girls were not a ‘high value heavily-defended target’. We mourn their senseless deaths and blame General Dynamics for profiting from supplying weapons that are killing children. The American Friends Service Committee reports that 40% of the thousands of innocent civilians killed in Gaza with General Dynamics weapons were children. A company like that, profiting from killing children, has no place in our community. We need all concerned Sonoma County residents to call for their removal from Sonoma County.”
The family-friendly, peaceful event will feature bannering, a vigil, colorful pickets, a teach-in, street theater, a sing-along, and a die-in, and is sponsored by CODEPINK Sonoma County, Veterans for Peace, General Dynamics Out of Sonoma County, Sonoma County for Palestine, and others.
For more information, please contact Cynthia Papermaster, CODEPINK Sonoma County Organizer, at (510) 365-1500 or [email protected].
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