By Angelo Haynes
At approximately 10:00 a.m., on Friday, Jan.23, about a dozen individuals claiming to be a coalition of community activist groups from across San Diego County converged at the front office of Mayor Todd Gloria to protest his current SDPD policies regarding cooperation with Federal ICE officers. The chief concern expressed in a demand letter brought to the scene was an immediate clarification of SDPD policy and operational directives, including the requiring of the removal of face coverings during ICE operations.
The protestors then conducted a sit-in, a classic form of non-violent civil rights protest to get the attention of Gloria after repeated attempts to schedule a meeting. Nine protestors occupied the waiting room space and the elevator bay of the 11th floor. Multiple staffers ranging from IT contractors strode through the scrum, while arriving for work in the morning.
Protest leader Bleu Wong of SD Bike Brigade was leading the protest and had indicated that she had been in contact with Todd Gloria’s office since last summer and had yet to have an actual conversation with the mayor regarding this issue. In response to the mayor’s office’s lack of communication, this collection of activists mobilized and showed up at his office with a list of demands printed on plastic polymer board signage.
A representative of Gloria’s office met with Bleu to discuss a message to be relayed to Todd Gloria’s office. After 15 minutes of vehement discussion, she returned to the main office and never returned to the front desk.
After meeting with the staff representative, Bleu had this to say. “We’ve been trying to get a meeting with the mayor, those that do anti-ice patrols don’t keep our community safe. The San Diego Police Department is getting very vague instructions from the mayor. He basically just says that they don’t work with ICE.” Bleu commented.
The sit-in protest went on for several hours leaving only a plucky Mayor’s office intern manning the front desk, while protestors waited for another staff member to emerge. After an hour or so of waiting, the protestors began to yell and read aloud the demands outlined in the demand letter. Several hours later, according to reports from the Union-Tribune, protestors began banging on the doors and front desk; writing comments on papers and covering front desk furniture with the notes. The noise and disruption continued resulting in SDPD being dispatched to the mayor’s office.
6 protestors barricaded themselves inside the front office with miscellaneous objects found in the janitor’s closet according to police reports who monitored surveillance footage. The protest ended with SDPD responding and arresting 6 protestors.
All staff members were evacuated safely from the scene and no injuries were reported.
