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Given the choice between leaving private property and being cited with criminal trespass, seven people chose the latter in order to put their stamp on a protest Friday that drew about 30 people to the Montana Republican Party's Missoula office on Brooks Street.

Several signs and banners protesting Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court went up around Missoula this week. Word of a coming protest had spread in recent days, although the location was not known until members of the Western Montana chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and Missoula Rises organizations descended upon the GOP office shortly before 2 p.m.

There, fewer than 10 staged a sit-in inside the office, where they were locked inside until police arrived.

"We're just obviously very upset about this whole Kavanaugh thing and how Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was treated," said Tootie Welker, one of the main organizers from DSA in Friday's protest.

Welker told Missoula City police she spent 30 years working toward ending violence against women, and had been deeply effected by Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh.

"I have thousands of women's stories in me, and they just bubble up when you hear stuff like that," she said. "The outrage you feel — you have to do something."