A small group of activists opposing immigration enforcement barricaded themselves in Mayor Todd Gloria’s office on Friday and called on him to take action against ICE.
The group sent messages and photos to various members of the media in the afternoon. The photos showed a list of demands posted in his office, along with two hastily written signs on the glass doors leading inside. They read ‘Welcome to the People’s Bureau’.
“A group of citizen activists has taken over Todd Gloria’s office. They are barricaded inside,” the activists said in a statement to San Diego Times. “They demand that Gloria meet with them and send clear guidance to the SDPD on how they will protect the community from criminal actions by ICE agents.”
Neither Gloria’s office nor the San Diego Police Department responded to questions about the barricade. Police, a photographer reported at 4 p.m., are on the scene and preparing to clear members of the press from the area outside the mayor’s office.
Protesters interrupted Gloria’s Jan. 15 State of the City address, with some focusing on his role in responding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Their actions have come under increasing scrutiny since an ICE officer fatally shot a Minneapolis woman, Renee Good, two weeks ago.
Gloria responded to the protesters, who were escorted from the City Council chambers where the speech was delivered, by calling Good’s death a murder and expressing concerns about the May 30 ICE attack on Buona Forchetta in South Park.
The protesters at the speech were also angry at his apparent refusal to meet with them. One shouted: “You’re afraid of us. All we’re trying to do is meet you, but you won’t meet us.”
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