On the evening of August 14, members of the Jewish activist group Never Again Action were engaged in a peaceful civil disobedience protest against Trump regime ICE immigration policies at the Wyatt detention facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Shortly before 10 p.m., a pickup truck approached at a rapid rate of speed. After initially stopping, the driver pushed forward as people screamed. Two people injured by the truck were taken to the hospital. After corrections officers at the privately-owned facility came out to the parking lot and used pepper spray against the activists, three other people were also taken to the hospital, where they were treated for exposure to the caustic chemical.
The driver of the truck, Capt. Thomas Woodworth, was quickly placed on administrative leave, and a day later he resigned his position from the detention facility. The incident remains under active investigation by the Rhode Island State Police and is also under internal investigation by the owner of the detention center.
At a press conference on Aug. 20, members of Never Again Action decried the violent attack on peaceful protesters that occurred at the detention center, and called on Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo and the General Assembly to “take whatever steps are necessary to shut down the Wyatt immediately and release all ICE detainees currently held there.” Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Matt Harvey, an organizer with Never Again Action, who recounts the events that occurred during the group’s Aug. 14 protest – while observing that the violence visited upon peaceful protesters in a public place is likely an indicator of the kinds of violence the ICE contracted staff “feel empowered to inflict on the vulnerable immigrants and asylum-seekers in their care in the prison.”
MATT HARVEY: So the Wyatt is a privately operated prison located in Central Falls, Rhode Island. It is the only location in the state where ICE detainees are currently held. Never Again Action Rhode Island had a protest and an action at the Wyatt in early July. There were a couple hundred people who attended the protest. We had a number of protesters who, in an act of civil disobedience, quite literally shut the facility down using their bodies to block the entrances and exits to the prison so that no vehicles could enter or exit. It was a very successful and very peaceful protest. There was really no violence or anything to speak of. Eighteen people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for that civil disobedience. And I think the success of that event, we were able to shut the facility down for an evening. And the turnout we had encouraged us to go back and try to do it again, which is where we found ourselves last Wednesday,
BETWEEN THE LINES: As most of our listeners will know, one of the corrections officers there at the facility attempted to drive through the line of peaceful protesters who were blocking the entrance and at least two people I’m aware of were injured. But tell us exactly what happened, if you would.
MATT HARVEY: Sure. The events started again, very similar to the event we held in July – a peaceful and a really, I think a great event. We had more people attend, by some estimates, 400 to 500 people marched from a local park over to the Wyatt facility for several hours. There were speeches from rabbis and other faith leaders, from leaders of the immigrant community, from other leaders of the community. We presented a list of demands to the leadership of the Wyatt, or I should say we attempted to present those with demands to the Wyatt, asking for more transparency about who was held there and under what conditions. They refused to meet with us. And so, we repeated the same civil disobedience actions that we’ve taken the first time around where we blocked entrances to the prison.
We arrived at the facility around 7 o’clock. By about 9 p.m. we shifted the focus to actually block two entrances to the staff parking lot for about 45 minutes. We uneventfully blocked the entrances to those parking lots until about 10 minutes to 10, when entirely out of nowhere, a pickup truck came down the road and swerved into the parking lot, directly at the line of protesters who were seated across it. And I’m sure you others have had seen the video, (which) was a really scary scene. People jumped up, tried to block the truck, two people had to go to the hospital because of injuries from the truck itself. After the truck, you know, drove into that line and sort of gunned itself forward and was surrounded by our protesters, a group of other guards from the prison came running down, surrounded the truck, shoved folks out of the way and then pepper-sprayed the crowd somewhat indiscriminately. As I said, two people went to the hospital because of injuries from the truck itself. Another three people went to the hospital, just from the pepper spray and many more people were wearing incapacitated that were being treated on the scene by EMTs because of the pepper spray that the guards use. It was a really scary scene and very unexpected. To our knowledge, this is the first time that any Never Again protests anywhere in the country has had some kind of a violent incident like this.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Tell us a bit about what’s happened to this particular captain. I believe his name is Capt. Thomas Woodworth, who was driving that truck.
MATT HARVEY: On the night of the events of the attack – absolutely nothing happened to Capt. Woodworth. He was protected by his colleagues and local police didn’t make any move to even question much less arrest him. Very quickly after the events, the state police and the state attorney general announced they were opening an investigation. The Wyatt announced that Capt. Woodworth had been placed on administrative leave and that a day later it was announced he had resigned. Obviously, we’re pleased that he’s resigned because we’re glad that he’s no longer working there. From our perspective, that’s really just a first step. We believe that he should face criminal charges for assaulting these protesters with his truck in the wake of Charlottesville. That’s something that has to be taken very seriously. That was an extremely dangerous thing to do. We also believe that the other guards who use pepper spray on a crowd of innocent protesters, including a woman in her 70s, should potentially face charges for their actions.
But we also want to take a step back and recognize that while the action of this one guard and his colleagues were certainly awful, it’s worth putting in context. This is the kind of violence they were willing to enact on a group of peaceful protesters who were mostly white, in front of cameras. Given that, it’s not hard to imagine how much worse the violence is inside that facility where these guards don’t have the scrutiny they had that night. This for us shines the light on why we’re protesting in the first place. The immigration machine from the border to wherever folks who are being detained is a whole system that is violent at its core and one that needs to be shut down.
For more information, visit Never Again Action at neveragainaction.com.
