Biography
Bill Ofenloch is a New York Catholic peace activist whose work with the Catholic Peace Fellowship and Catholic Worker movement reaches back to the Vietnam War era. He has taken part in nonviolent antiwar and nuclear-disarmament actions, documented Catholic Worker protests, and written about peacemaking in Palestine. Ofenloch was arrested and released after a March 27, 2026 peace witness at the Pentagon.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Bill Ofenloch among eighteen people arrested on November 30, 2023 after blocking entrances to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, demanding U.S. signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The report states that the eighteen were charged with disorderly conduct, processed within a couple of hours and released with a December 20 court date. The court date was prospective; no subsequent outcome, jail admission or complete day of imprisonment is inferred. The Nuclear Resister, December 1, 2023.
The Nuclear Resister individually names Bill Ofenloch among nine people arrested on November 13, 2023 during a blockade of the General Dynamics–Electric Boat engineering complex in New London, Connecticut. The report gives charges of criminal trespass, criminal mischief and breach of the peace. It states that those arrested were processed at the New London police station for up to seven hours and then released; that group maximum is not assigned as this person’s individual completed duration. The November 27 arraignment was prospective, not a documented outcome. No overnight jail admission or imprisonment-day total is inferred. The Nuclear Resister, November 14, 2023.
Art Laffin’s participant report individually names Bill Ofenloch among fourteen people arrested during the May 17, 2013 White House sidewalk vigil calling for Guantanamo’s closure. Park Police took the group to the Anacostia Park Police station and charged them with disobeying a lawful order. The report does not give an actual release day or establish jail admission or completed custody duration. The group’s return instructions for an arraignment date are not a completed court outcome. The Nuclear Resister, May 19, 2013.
The contemporary Jerry Berrigan Memorial Drone Blockade report individually names Bill Ofenloch among twelve people arrested at Hancock Field on January 28, 2016. It reports one misdemeanor and two violations for each participant without naming those offenses. An individual jail admission, physical release, imposed sentence and completed custody duration are not established by this account. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The December 2016 report names this activist among sixteen arrested at the Pentagon witness on December 28 for disobeying a lawful order and subsequently released from processing. Cardboard figures of Daniel Berrigan carried at the action were memorial cutouts, not an additional arrestee. The article supplies no measured jail interval. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The April 2015 U.S. Mission to the United Nations report names Bill Ofenloch among twenty-two people arrested, processed at the Seventeenth Precinct and released by early afternoon. Its introductory April 27 date conflicts with Art Laffin’s participant account and John LaForge’s separate first-person account, both dating the action April 28. Accounts also differ in their descriptions of summons charges. These differences are preserved rather than silently replacing existing case dates or charges; the planned June 24 hearing is not an eventual court outcome.
Sources: Contemporary report; Contemporary report.
The July 23, 2014 Hancock report individually names Bill Ofenloch and reports Trespass, followed by release on recognizance. For the five people held on bail, the article gives no later physical discharge date. Brian Hynes participated but was not arrested in this action; no custody is allocated to him from the seven-person roster.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 549.
