DETROIT -- Cold Detroit winds on Monday whipped signs reading things like, "Chase Funds Climate Change" and "Save our Children," as activists, many from Occupy Detroit, staged a rally against the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline and one of its largest financiers, J.P. Morgan Chase and Co.

The small event held Monday afternoon in front of Chase Bank in downtown Detroit was mostly peaceful, but there was a minor run-in between a protestor, security from the bank and Detroit police.

Multiple Detroit police cars parked on the curb of the traffic circle that surrounds Grand Martius Park across from the bank where protestors chanted; and bank-hired security in royal blue uniforms road bicycles in the vicinity.

Josh Achatz, 28, of Detroit, with "Occupy Detroit" painted on the back of his grey jacket, announced he'd been escorted from the bank shortly after the protest began about 1 p.m. Monday.

Achatz planned to, as a personal statement in opposition of Chase Bank, close his bank account, which he's held with the institution for about three years.

He also planned to read a statement denouncing the bank's involvement in the pipeline financing and urging other customer to follow his lead and discontinue their relationship with the company.

"One security guard came up to me and said... are you here for the protest," Achatz said. "I said I'm here to close my account; that's my protest.

An officer said "if you start yelling inside the bank, we're going to arrest you on felony charges."

Achatz said he sat down and waited for a bank employee to help him close his bank account. But his protest wasn't over.

"I started reading my statement and, immediately, this guy came over and tried to pull it out of my hands, kept pulling on it and I kept holding it away from him... and maybe two of them grabbed me... and they just sort of slowly pushed me out as I finished reading it."

Achatz was not cited after being escorted from the bank. He then explained why he did it in the first place.

"Our climate, our ecosystem is already damaged, it's already suffering and this is just going to make it worse," Achatz says. "This is something that would directly relate to global warming and the destruction of our ozone; it poisons our water... It's just going to be super dangerous for the Earth."

The activists who attended the event were part of a larger "day of action" across the country to protest the construction of the $7.6 billion pipeline, which is projected to be 1,179 miles long and travel from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska.

Three activists, Matthew Almonte, Glen Collins and Isabel Brooks were jailed in Tyler, Texas on Dec. 3, charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass, resisting arrest, and illegal dumping after chained themselves on the inside of a pipe at a construction site for the project near Winona, Texas.

outside the Houston offices of TransCanada, the pipeline owner, during Monday's day of action.

Mike Sabbagh, 32, an Occupy Detroit member from Ferndale says the pipeline will eventually transport environmentally suspect "tar sands oil" -- which is less refined than crude oil -- to Texas for refining.

"The tar sands oil presents this new kind of risk that we don't know anything about," Sabbagh said. "The reason that we're here specifically is that Chase funds a huge amount of this stuff.

The protest drew greater than 20 activists, which Sabbagh said isn't bad for midday on a cold Monday.

Protestors passed out a flyer with these statements:

"Extracting the tar sands in Canada will be game over for the climate," NASA Scientist James Hansen

J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. and Citigroup issued a $1 billion bond for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- then those same banks bought $295 million of the bond. Their pipe dream is our nightmare

"Keystone XL is a giant straw into the second biggest pool of carbon. Even if it doesn't spill, it would add 900,000 barrels of oil worth of carbon each day to the Earth's atmosphere, or as much as the new auto efficiency regulations would save," Naomi Klein, a Canadian activist.

1 million gallons of tar sands oil spilled in the Kalamazoo River in 2010. It is still being cleaned up today

Related:

More about the tar sands oil protests

TransCanada description of the project

explains the reason for the protest: