Three days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, hundreds of Tulsans filled Fred Johnson Park Saturday to protest ICE and the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
The demonstration is the second protest held in Tulsa in response to the fatal shooting of Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, near an ongoing immigration enforcement operation. Trump administration officials, along with several Oklahoma lawmakers, have said the agent acted in self-defense.
Indivisible Tulsa County, a political advocacy organization founded last year, hosted the protest. From speaking up for their own families to standing by their neighbors, protesters shared different reasons for how they came to stand alongside Riverside Drive to declare their opposition to Trump administration policies. Here are a few of their stories.
Thanh Hoang, 55, and Taylor Hoang, 16
Thanh Hoang and his wife Thanh Hoang are both proud immigrants from Vietnam who immigrated to Tulsa in 1975. It’s important to them to stand up for citizenship and the constitution.
“What happened to Renee Good is just horrible,” he said. “It’s not acceptable what happened.”
The Hoangs brought their 16-year old daughter Taylor to show her she has a right to peacefully protest.
“There’s times in your life that you need to stand up, you know, maybe not for yourself, but for others,” he said.
Taylor believes showing up to protest alongside her parents reminds her she can still make an impact on the world even before she can cast a vote. She encourages others her age to do the same.
“I’m not afraid to stand up for what is right, especially as my parents are immigrants,” Hoang said. “I just need to stand up for them.”
Carla Treadway, 71
Treadway couldn’t sit home and stay silent during times like these, she said. Even if someone is more moderate politically, she added, recent government actions have crossed a line.
“We have to be more thoughtful and considerate to others,” Treadway said. “But the direction our country is going now is not the direction.”
When it comes to Good’s killing, Treadway has strong feelings on what she saw in footage of the incident posted online. Her daughter, who watched the same video, had a different perspective on the situation.
“There’s this family strife between two views of the same scene and the same footage,” she said. “It’s tearing me apart to know people I love and I don’t have the same view.”
Charles Rhinehart, 69
Rhinehart showed up in an inflatable Trump costume to protest the government actions that he believes are autocratic. He wants others to stand up to protect their democracy and the rights of others, he said.
“This is not what our forefathers founded us on,” Rhineheart said. “We are a land of immigration. Most everybody here has immigrated here.”
It’s also important to him to use his voice and show his grandkids that he didn’t stay silent.
“He stood up,” Rhinehart wants his grandchildren to say. “He did.”
Samantha Rangel, 41
Rangel has been frustrated by the administration and doesn’t know what else to do besides use her voice. She came out to Saturday’s protest with her daughter and husband.
It encouraged her that one of her six children wanted to show up in support.
“I hate what’s happening to our immigrant communities,” Rangel said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I’m Native, so, as you know, we’ve been fighting this fight a long time. We’re tired, but we have to show the next generation that they’re not powerless.”
Brandi Hamill-Ellis, 44
Hamill-Ellis drove into Tulsa from Owasso to attend Saturday’s protest in hopes of finding a sense of community among people who share similar beliefs.
She’s been frustrated by the mistreatment of people and how it parallels other fascism that has happened in the past, she said.
“I feel like we have to fight that,” she said. “It’s not just Renee Good. It’s an awful situation. She got murdered, other people have been murdered. We’re just not treating people the way that we should treat people.”
David Hays, 60
Hays has been protesting Trump regularly for about a year and half. He attends demonstrations because he wants people to wake up and see what’s actually going on in the country.
On Saturday, as most protesters held signs demanding the abolition of ICE and the end of Trump administration immigration policies, Hays was thinking of his restaurant coworkers who are mostly Hispanic.
“I’m terrified for them,” he said. “They’re terrified. They’re good people. The Republicans just want to hurt people and take everything from us.”
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