A small protest was organized Saturday in Hopkinsville to demonstrate opposition to federal immigration polices following the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Wednesday in Minneapolis.
“I couldn’t stand by and do nothing,” said Hopkinsville resident Debbie Gilkey, who helped put out the word of a local protest near the Christian County Justice Center.
On short notice, about 20 people joined the Hopkinsville protest during a light rain at 11 a.m. They brought homemade signs with messages ranging from “No more killing, stop ice” to “ICE out” and “No Human is illegal on stolen land.” A few in the group had “No Kings” signs from previous demonstrations at the same spot on the West Ninth Street sidewalk.
The local protest was one of hundreds over the weekend in U.S. towns and cities in reaction to the fatal shooting of Renee Good, who was in the driver’s seat of an SUV stopped perpendicularly in a residential street when federal agents approached her. She was fatally shot by an ICE agent as she began to pull forward. Federal officials and witnesses dispute whether it appeared she was attempting to hit someone with the SUV, or if she was moving her vehicle away from agents.
Among the Hopkinsville protesters, Gilkey said she opposes the Trump administration’s immigration policies because of the way ICE agents are treating individuals they encounter.
“Everyone deserves to be treated with respect,” she said, adding it appears ICE agents are rounding up people based on their skin color.
“They don’t even know who they are arresting,” she said.
“My biggest concern, out of everything Trump is doing, is his immigration policy,” she said. “We are never going to figure out all of he people he has disappeared.”
Saturday marked the fourth Hopkinsville protest against President Trump’s policies in the past several months. The largest local demonstration, of roughly 225 people, was on Oct. 18.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
