A Canyon Lake man who says he was roughed up, sprayed with tear gas and arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers while protesting for the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos at Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s (ICE) Dilley Immigration Center Wednesday spoke at an anti-ICE rally in New Braunfels Saturday, Jan. 31, telling an estimated 275 protestors gathered around the gazebo on Main Plaza that showing up matters.
Comal ISD substitute teacher Gavin Pope, 24, co-founder of the Young Democrats of Greater Comal County, said he was standing in a designated area outside the ICE facility when he moved to the front of the crowd to fill a space after DPS asked anyone who felt they were “at risk” to leave, telling protesters they had “done” their jobs.
Reading a speech on his cellphone, Pope said he stood next to clergy and others who were singing.
“I did not show up planning to get arrested, but when that did happen, when a DPS officer shoved a baton into my throat as I stood there still and nonviolent, when another officer grabbed my hair and shoved my face into the pavement, I still didn’t feel scared because I knew, I felt I had a really good chance at being okay.
“And I also knew that I felt like that because I had showed up.”
Pope, a former rugby player for St. Louis University, was tackled by troopers who were wearing riot gear.
He was charged with interference with public duties and spent the night in Frio County Jail.
A judge ordered his release Thursday but did not set bail.
Pope faces up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.
There were some reports of protesters spitting and throwing objects at the troopers, but graphic videos posted online by TV reporters show agitated protesters holding the line before officers surge into the crowd. Pope can be seen lying on the ground, held down by several officers as he is handcuffed.
In a statement, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Pope and another protester were arrested after “approximately 150 demonstrators refused to leave and began to breach the established protest barrier.”
They confirmed troopers did use pepper ball projectiles and pepper ball grenades.
Pope’s story matches that of another eyewitness, Faith UCC-New Braunfels Pastor Carla Cheatham, who posted a detailed account of what happened at the rally on the church’s Facebook page.
She accompanied Pope’s mother to the Frio County Jail Thursday to pick up her son after “hours of back-channeling by the march organizers, supportive leaders back home, and my friend’s mom with a Texas state representative, lawyers, an investigator, and a judge, meant we finally got him released earlier than anticipated.
“… He was tired, thirsty, emotionally drained, concerned about his injured shoulder, and the whelps and swollen hives around his burning wrists after spending over 2 1/2 hours in cuffs, and ready to get out of his tear-gas-covered shirt,” she said.
Sheriff’s deputies complimented Pope on his composure and respect for authorities.
Despite his treatment by troopers, Pope told Saturday’s crowd he will continue to “show up” and organize.
“If it’s signing envelopes to get the vote out, if it’s showing up to a candidate meet-and-greet, if it’s showing up here, showing up here matters,” he said. “So my one ask of you, the one thing I want to stick with all of you is that showing up matters. Everyone has a different way that they can show up. But if you see a way that you can, you should.”
Merrie Fox, Ph.D, a Democrat running to unseat incumbent Republican Carrie Isaac for Texas House District 73, followed Pope’s emotional comments with a fiery speech of her own, reiterating “this moment matters…because the future of our neighbors and the future of our Democracy depends on what we do right now.”
Fox has lived in Comal County since 1982. The New Braunfels resident worked as an assistant principal at Comal ISD’s Bill Brown Elementary School and Smithson Valley Middle School before retiring as a middle school principal with Randolph Field ISD in Universal City.
“We are tired, we are angry, and yes, we are scared,” she said. “There are nights we don’t sleep. There are moments we cry alone because the weight of what is happening in this country feels unbearable. But hear me clearly. We will not stay silent, we will not shrink, we will not comply. Because in America right now, the cost of compliance is freedom. And that price is too damn high.”
Saturday’s Rally
Democratic rallies and protests at Main Plaza in downtown New Braunfels in heavily red Comal County seldom attract crowds, more than even 50 people, or any attention from residents.
Most of the protestors have white hair, some with a few purple streaks. Many of the women are veterans of massive 1960s and 70s protests.
Saturday was different, although protesters wrapped in heavy coats straggled in slowly at first in 35-degree temperatures.
Weather was the big news.
“I don’t know how Minnesota does this,” said one.
Two New Braunfels police officers were clearly visible on the steps of the historic courthouse across the street, part of what organizers described as a heavy but welcome law-enforcement presence.
Fifteen minutes later, as the event kicked off with a safety speech, the plaza was packed with people of all ages, including a green unicorn.
A lone counter-protestor sat silently in a lawn chair across the street, an American flag at his side. A pickup truck with a Trump flag circled twice, its occupant jeering at demonstrators and blaring his horn.
But over the next hour, as protestors marched counter-clockwise to traffic, they were greeted with light taps on horns and friendly waves from drivers.
A woman with a box of donuts offered them to participants as they chanted, “No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”
Protest organizer Hunter Bledsoe, founder of Indivisible Hill Country, told MyCanyonLake.com there has been ICE activity along the I-35 corridor in New Braunfels.
He’s planning to offer training for those facing circumstances like Pope’s and those of thousands of other protesters, nationwide, who’ve experienced violent push-back — and even death — at the hands of federal agents.
“We have been watching what’s happening in Minnesota,” he said. “The senseless killings, murders, people just, you know, expressing their rights. And what ICE is doing to our citizens and immigrants is just wrong. There’s a way to have immigration done properly, and this is not it. So we’re doing this rally. We’re standing in solidarity with our people in Michigan and Minnesota … but we’re also doing this to let the government know that ICE has to be stopped. There needs to be enforcement of the immigration laws, but not like this.”
Saturday’s protest was one of hundreds organized nationwide last week, including a walkout by San Antonio and New Braunfels-area high school students on Friday.
Conejos Ramos, a legal Ecuadorian immigrant detained at the Dilley facility along with his asylum-seeking father, was released from custody today and flown back to Minneapolis.
Joaquin Castro, who represents Texas’s 20th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, reported he was reunited with his mother, his now-famous bunny cap and the school backpack he was wearing when detained by ICE agents in January outside his home.