Hundreds Protest ICE Shooting, Sheriff Office’s 287(g) Agreement
By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZEL
COOPERSTOWN
Nearly 400 people protested Otsego County Sheriff Richard J. Devlin’s (R) decision to sign a 287(g) Warrant Service Officer agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota in downtown Cooperstown on Saturday, January 10. The protest was organized by local chapters of Indivisible, a progressive activist group.
Virginia Kennedy, the leader of CooperstownOneonta Indivisible, began the event on the lawn of Cooperstown’s village hall and library by asking demonstrators to be respectful and clean, thanking village police for being there to maintain order, and read a statement Good’s wife shared with the media.
“We had whistles,” Kennedy quoted Becca Good. “They had guns.”
Under Secretary Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security called Good “an anti-ICE rioter” engaged in “domestic terrorism” hours after the shooting.
The Cooperstown protest was scheduled before news of the Minnesota shooting broke, and was focused on opposing the Sheriff’s Office’s 287(g) agreement. The agreement allows the Sheriff’s Office to hold detainees in criminal custody with immigration warrants for an additional 48 hours to facilitate transfer to ICE. So far, according to Devlin, no one has yet been subject to the agreement’s terms. The protest became one of many across the country after the Minneapolis ICE shooting.
Signs protesters brought included phrases like “Abolish ICE,” “Impeach Noem Now,” “RIP Renee Nicole Good,” “Vote Out Devlin,” and more. Devlin is running for his sixth four-year term this year. Some demonstrators brought American iconography like flags.
County Board Representative Leslie Berliant (D-Cherry Valley, Middlefield, Roseboom) and recently former Oneonta Mayor Mark Drnek (D), and Caitlin Ogden, the chair of the Otsego County Democratic Committee, gave speeches.
“As a newly elected and newly sworn in county legislator,” Berliant said, “I heard you loud and clear on Wednesday [January 7] when you testified before the county legislature that inviting ICE into our county makes you feel less safe.
“I share those concerns to my core, and I will do everything I can,” Berliant said.
Though the event was peaceful, several hecklers were present.
“She got what she deserved,” one motorist shouted while driving past the demonstration, likely referring to Good. “F***ing scumbags.”
After hearing speeches, protesters marched on the sidewalks through downtown chanting “ICE out for Good,” a call for ICE to end its activities in Good’s name. “Peacekeepers” in yellow vests guided the demonstrators through the village.
Demonstrators concluded the march where they started and committed to further actions in opposition to the Trump administration and ICE.
“We’re going to let these folks [in the Trump administration] know that America belongs to we, the people,” Kennedy told AllOtsego. “America does not belong to a small group of people in the White House who are using our tax money to build arches and ballrooms and whatever else when people can’t even afford to go to the doctor.”
Devlin did not respond to request for comment on the protest and the circumstances of Good’s death.
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Newly sworn-in Otsego County Rep. Leslie Berliant’s (District 7) tone was extraordinarily divisive and harsh. The word “fascism” was employed loosely against her political opposition. Unbecoming an elected official presumed to represent all. A speaker also called for “stomping” on those disagreeing with the protest’s thrust. Very disconcerting rhetoric.
Many of us know people who we suspect or know are not here legally. If they are good people we would willingly appear at their hearings and testify that they should be allowed to remain and work here in our country.
What I don’t understand is why these protesters are against the agreement between the Sheriff and ICE to hand over people who have been arrested and/or convicted of criminal activity. Do they wish to keep criminals who came here illegally in this country? Do they want to risk a violent encounter when ICE goes to arrest them at their homes? Or is it just a knee-jerk anti-Trump reaction?