An unidentified suspect tagged at least three on-campus Coca-Cola machines with political stickers causing $200 in damages, campus police said.
At 10:16 a.m., Friday, Feb. 16, the Coca-Cola company reported to Binghamton’s New York State University Police that ‘anti-Coca-Cola stickers with strong adhesive’ had been placed all over at least one of the Coke-product vending machines (including over the card swipe reader) in Lecture Hall, Investigator Dennis P. Bush said. ‘Damage was being done when attempting to remove the stickers,’ he said. The value of damage was estimated to be $100.
One week later, at noon, the Coca-Cola company again reported to campus police that its property had been vandalized. This time, the sticker-bomber hit two machines in Newing College’s Broome Hall, accruing $50 in damages for each machine.
Police will unlikely make any arrests ‘unless somebody comes up for it,’ Bush said.
Both incidents included stickers with a political message. On the Broome Hall machines, the stickers that had not been removed displayed the following:
‘Don’t drink Killer Coke Zero. zero Ethics. zero Justice! zero Health!’
‘Killer Coke. This company is ethically out of order.’
‘Killer Coke. Can’t hide its crimes in Columbia.’
In a strange twist, Broome’s machines were hit by an anonymous counter-vandal. A handwritten sign was taped on each machine, saying, ‘When you are caught for vandalizing this machine with misleading propaganda, you will be criminally charged ‘ Find a real cause.’
And on one of the stickers, somebody wrote, ‘Hey, vandal, where’s your ethics?’
In addition to anti-Coca-Cola slogans, the stickers also showed a Web site: KillerCoke.org. Killer Coke is an organization that protests Coca-Cola’s alleged practices in Columbia that have lead to the murder, kidnapping and torture of union leaders and organizers involved in the country’s bottling plants.
And while the group has had success at two dozen colleges, including Rutgers and New York University, to stop selling Coca-Cola products on their campus, Binghamton, according to the Web site, is not an active campaign member for the organization. Moreover, those campuses that do campaign are encouraged to ‘Distribute stickers/bumper stickers to students to place on backpacks, brief cases, notebooks, cars ‘ to give the campaign and its Web site visibility.’
Sticker-bombing vending machines was not listed.