The deadly shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday sparked more than 1,000 protests across the country over the weekend.
In the D.C. region on Saturday, drivers honked supportively to the more than 100 protesters that lined both sides of Rockville Pike in Montgomery County, Maryland.
WTOP spoke to Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, the group behind the protests.
“There is a massive, spontaneous outpouring of grief and outrage around the country over the murder of Renee Good,” Greenberg said. “And all of the violence and lawlessness and horror that ICE has been wreaking on our communities over the last year.”
Lisa Fuller, the founder of Indivisible MoCoWoMen, told WTOP that there was a call to action on Thursday asking people to protest over the weekend.
“I am devastated about what’s happening.” Fuller said. “Enough is enough, is enough, is enough.”
While the rain poured on the protesters, they spoke of the importance of showing up to demonstrations like the one also taking place on Saturday in Chevy Chase and Alexandria, Virginia.
“We’re here because our soul is broken,” said Eden Durbin of Do The Most Good, a Montgomery County grassroots political group. “This is not America, this is not who we are.”
A lot of the protesters carried signs, including Olney resident Carol Wilson.
“Believe your eyes not your lies,” is what Wilson’s sign read, and she said the videos of what took place in Minneapolis was the inspiration for her sign.
“Showing that she did not intend to run over the ICE agent, even though, immediately after Trump and Noem and now JD Vance are all saying otherwise,” she said.
Felicia Kimmel, who was also part of the protest, compared the comments from administration officials as straight out of the book, “Animal Farm.”
“To lie about what we are seeing, it’s Dictatorship 101,” Kimmel said.
When asked why, even in the rain, was Wilson spending hours at this protest, she turned her sign around and read it out loud: “It’s important to show up.”
“It’s important to fight for our democracy, for our immigrant neighbors, for American citizens, because eventually we will all be targeted,” she said.
