Many local leaders and community advocates came together outside of the Albuquerque Convention Center, where less than a week earlier, Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump brought his hateful, divisive and often violence-inciting campaign to Albuquerque. Following a week-long witch-hunt and $20,000+ reward for tips leading to more arrests, speakers at the press conference called for a stop to the brutal criminalization of young Albuquerqueans caught up in the antagonizing approach that the Albuquerque Police Department took to the peaceful protest held earlier that day.
Marissa Sanchez of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, described the situation: “The story of the police and the mayor are entirely different from what actually happened. Police instigated violence when they tried to shut down the protest with cavalry, smoke grenades and pepper spray. They are now retaliating against protesters for defending themselves, outrageously charging several protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, with serious felonies. The police were the aggressors, not the protesters. This is the same police force that was forced under federal oversight because of a pattern and practice of violence and criminality.” Beyond pro-Trump remarks by a police officer caught on video, police have encouraged vigilante violence against the arrested protesters by publishing their personal contact information.
“Albuquerque’s response to the Trump rally was a thing of pride and has been replicated at every stop since,” noted Javier Benavidez, Executive Director of the SouthWest Organizing Project. “We won’t stand for his campaign’s vitriol and racism against our country’s young people of color, our country’s bright future, and we also won’t stand for their being thrown under the bus as so-called thugs or criminals.” SWOP’s work is to dismantle the criminalization of young people and end racist mass incarceration policies across New Mexico.
Hope Alvarado of The Red Nation stated, “The Trump protest was framed as a violent riot when many families and community members attended the nonviolent protest to defend themselves and their families from the racist, white supremacist, fascists and ignorant remarks Trump has publicized, many of the individuals at the protest also found themselves defending themselves from our very own police officers who not only supported Mr. Trump who reacted to the nonviolent protest in violent aggressive ways such as using tear gas/smoke grenades, riot squad presences with bats, cavalry and pepper spray. At this event, our police department was the aggressor not the protesters, as well as the protesters being attacked by Trump supporters. We stood to make sure the Donald trump knew he was NOT welcome in Albuquerque, New Mexico.”
Father Frank Quintana of the Blessed Oscar Romero Catholic Community of Albuquerque added, “The less than $50,000 in estimated property damage pales in comparison to the more than $30 million that our city has had to shell out for APD shooting lawsuits. Let’s stop the dehumanization of criminalizing fear-mongering and consider the violence of mass deportations, hunger, racism and poverty.”
