FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Captain Woodworth resigns after being suspended for driving truck into Jewish youth and elders protesting Wyatt Detention Facility
Friday, August 16, 2019
CONTACT:
Amy Anthony, Never Again Action
Never Again Action released the following statement in response to the news that Captain Woodworth, who drove a truck into Jewish protestors blocking the entrance to the Wyatt Detention Facility on Wednesday night, putting two protestors in the hospital, has resigned:
“We are glad to hear that Captain Woodworth has resigned. We hope that will not be the end of an effort to hold him accountable for attempting to run over multiple Jewish youth and elders peacefully protesting.
However, Woodworth’s resignation is just the beginning. First, he should face criminal charges for his actions which endangered the lives of protesters on Wednesday night. The other officers who indiscriminately pepper-sprayed a distraught and traumatized crowd must face accountability for the violence they enacted, which sent three more people to the hospital.
We expect the investigation by the Rhode Island State Police and the Attorney General to continue and to address the violence and dehumanization that is an integral part of the ICE detention process. If these officers felt empowered to attack a group of protesters in front of the public and the media, imagine what kind of violence must be taking place inside the prison, out of site, against vulnerable immigrants and people of color.
That is why we will continue to take action. Woodworth has resigned, but many others remain. We urge all ICE officers to join us in making the moral choice: quit your jobs, stand with us.
Our Jewish heritage demands that we stand against dehumanization and atrocities. “Never Again” means that we will not give up until the Wyatt is shut down and all detainees are released, and until Rhode Island acts to ban the operation of private, for-profit prisons in the state. “Never Again” means that we will keep protesting until all immigrants have been released from prisons and concentration camps, and until papers have been secured for the 11 million undocumented people living in this country.”
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Never Again Action is a mass mobilization of Jews who are organizing to shut down ICE and hold the political establishment accountable for enabling both the deportation machine that has separated immigrant families across the U.S. for decades and the current crisis at the border.
We come together as a group of differently affiliated Jewish organizers, recognizing that we have seen this groundwork laid before. We understand it to be our community’s obligation to stand up when we see history repeat itself and to declare that Never Again means Never Again for anybody.