Hundreds of Northeast Ohioans skipped work or school to rally at Public Square on Friday afternoon against ICE and the recent killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good amid frigid temperatures in the single digits.
There needs “to be justice and accountability to the policies that are responsible for these executions,” Greg Levy, a candidate for Senate from Akron, told the protesters through a PA system.
“It’s all a part of a greater struggle,” he said. “Something bigger that’s about people coming together and retaking control of this here country.” He added, “The more you try and silence us, the louder we will be.”
Chants echoed from the crowd: “No justice, no peace! We will strike in these streets!”
The growing National Shutdown general strike on Friday was a centerpiece to a large boycott around the country, which businesses shuttering their doors and/or making donations to immigrant non-profits in defiance of ICE.
“Every day, ICE, Border Patrol and other enforcers of Trump’s racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbors and sow fear,” the National Shutdown website reads. “It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!”
Scene confirmed at least a dozen businesses closed on Friday, including The Rowley Inn, Mac’s Backs, Terrapin Bakery, El Rinconcito Chapín, Vintage & Vaina, El Kiosquito Boricua, Hexagon Books, Algebra Tea House, Universal Cuts, Doki Doki, Warts and Wards, Holyland and the Cleveland Hair Fairy.
Kamal Alkayali, the son of Algebra Tea House owner Ayman Alkayali, framed the mass gathering as a Marxist retaliation against a power structure only worsening in its lack of oversight. The deaths of two U.S. citizens, of course, being the byproduct of that negligence.
Even for Democratic leaders, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Alkayali criticized for not doing more to quell escalating tensions between agents and Minnesotans. Self-reliance, Alkayali urged, was the only remaining value.
Politicians “were not there to protect Renee. They were not there to protect Alex,” Alkayali told the crowd. “So what makes you think they will protect us?”
“So, let me be clear,” he added. “Calling our representatives will not save us. Politicians will not save us. We will save us.”
The shootings of two American citizens in Minnesota has pushed many to protest for the first time, including Agnes Szlapka and Jessica Ivanovic, whose grandmother immigrated from Poland to Cleveland’s Slavic Village in the 1990s. Their family history was the main reason, they both said, they showed up.
And why they loathe ICE’s tactics. Szlapka now keeps a picture of her passport on her iPhone “just in case” she gets stopped.
“I think they’re savages—they’re inhumane,” Szlapka told Scene. “It’s a loss of dignity. it’s crazy insanity.”
Standing over by the Moses Cleaveland statue in coats and ski masks were D. and Steve, who both showed up to Public Square out of a sense of moral duty.
“I think that the federal government has really come mask-off to the point that they’re just killing people in the streets,” Steve, 34, told Scene.
“No warrants, no criminal history, no nothing,” he said. “They can just murder you and get away with it if they don’t like you.”
“It’s just scary, for lack of better words,” his friend D., who was also attending his first rally, added. “People are being shot down in the middle of the streets. We got to do what we have to do to make change.”
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