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Disabled South Gate resident Ana Casas-Wilson was arrested last Thursday evening in front of Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer, Tim Sloan’s San Marino home after a two-hour standoff between police officers and demonstrators. Casas-Wilson and some 80 supporters were there to ask Sloan to accept her good-faith mortgage payment and to stop the eviction of her and her family. Just by holding the demonstration in front of Sloan’s home, the group was violating a San Marino city ordinance passed last year that requires protestors to remain at least 150 feet away from a residence targeted for protest. At Thursday’s demonstration, this ordinance meant that all the demonstrators gathered in front of Sloan’s home risked arrest. San Marino has one of the highest average per-capita incomes in Los Angeles.

Casas-Wilson, who suffers from cerebral palsy and was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer in 2009, has been fighting the foreclosure on her 949-square-foot home for months. Wells Fargo ultimately rejected a loan modification request from Casas-Wilson after offering her the opportunity to apply for one. She and her husband, James Wilson, became unable to meet housing payments at the time of Ana’s diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Now that Casas-Wilson’s husband is back to work full-time and the family is more economically stable, Ana is pleading with Wells Fargo to stop the eviction of her family from her childhood home.

Wells Fargo leads the nation in housing foreclosure rates and is being accused of violating the federal Fair Housing Act that was adopted in 1968, as the result of an undercover investigation conducted by the National Fair Housing Alliance. Accompanying Casas- Wilson at the protest were members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the Service Employees International Union, and People Organized for Westside Renewal.

Uprising correspondent Chiara Borghetti was on the scene and she filed this special report for Uprising.

Visit www.calorganize.org for more information about Ana Casas-Wilson.