by Jacob Richards
On Oct. 27, at about 7:30am ICE kidnapped Fernando Jaramillo Solano and his two children, Kewin and Jana, while they were on their way to school. The Solano family had an active asylum claim and ICE later admitted that they had stopped the family by mistake.
Photo Credit Josh Stephenson, joshstephenson.com.
Within a few hours of their kidnapping citizens converged on the Durango’s ICE Field Office, during the day the crowds grew in numbers, someone placed their own chain on the facilities gate, and a couple dozen people began blocking the driveway. One person was ticketed for throwing rocks at the facility.
Protestors maintained the blockade through the night and into the next day
At about 6am federal agents tried to clear the protesters, Franci Stagi, 57, was placed in a choke hold and thrown down a nearby hill in a now viral video. People were not intimidated and the blockade held.
At about 11:45am on Oct. 28, ICE and other federal agents began deploying pepper-spray, rubber-bullets, and physical violence against those engaged in peaceful, civil-disobedience. According to DPD, about one-hundred protesters were blocking the road and the driveway to the ICE Field Office, when the federal agents decided to use force to clear out the crowd.
After clearing the crowd with force, ICE transported the family to an ICE family detention center in south Texas. A petition for their immediate release is being circulated that has over 5000 signatures.
The initial case, the protest, and federal agents’ use of force have since made international news, including the New York Times.
On Oct. 30, a special meeting about the protest and the violence directed against them was held a few days later by the Durango City Council on Oct. 30 and was attended by hundreds of concerned citizens.
At the meeting Durango Chief of Police Brice Current described events as “a protest that later turned to a riot.”
Current equated civil disobedience with violence, contrasting the recent large peaceful No Kings protest with the civil disobedience seen at the ICE protest.
“They [No Kings] were passionate, they were peaceful, they made their voices heard, and they were the same leaders that told protesters not to chain up the fence or block the drive ways and not to break the law.”
Current then unironically quoted Martin Luther King, a man synonymous with civil disobedience, “It’s wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.”
Current explained that local police departments can’t interfere with federal agents in their “legitimate duties,” he outlined numerous calls he had with the ICE agent in charge of the Durango Field Office and supervisors in Denver. According to Current he tried to facilitate the return of the children to their mother, he tried to deliver food for the children, and he was denied access to carry out a child welfare check at the ICE substation.
He was asked by ICE to clear the protesters, and to cut the chains off of the gate, which he did not do, citing Colorado law.
“The federal government cannot commandeer local officials,” said Current, adding “I will tell you every phone call… I was asked to be commandeered, essentially.”
According to Current, his department has asked both the Colorado Bureau of Investigations and the FBI to carry out independent investigations. CBI is explicitly looking at the chokehold used against protesters, in violation of Colorado State law.
“We were tortured. We did not see the sunlight. The three of us were confined in a tiny cell, without food, and with our hands, waist and feet chained… But when they finally pulled us out and we saw all the people supporting us out there we felt hopeful,” said Fernando Jaramillo Solano in a statement released by Companeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center. “From the car back I tried to thank everyone but I don’t think anyone saw us… I’m grateful to every person who was there, I saw that many were injured.”
Ambulances and first responders were called to help with the injured, according to many that testified at the special meeting, yet ambulances simply never arrived.
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