This weekend, the normally by-the-book, work-within-the-system Democratic organization WTF Can I Do Westmoreland held a surprisingly non-permitted funeral procession at the Westmoreland County Courthouse for the innocent woman murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on January 7th. It was essentially a demonstration and a short march to honor Mrs. Good as well as to protest the overtly and horrifically fascist tactics employed by ICE and the broader Trump Regime.
The fact that they held a demonstration without seeking permission from the city first was enough to surprise those of us from the Westmoreland Abolitionist Front that attended. This is outside of their typical behavior of what we would label center-right pandering to local government forces. And it was provably so with the clear frustration observed in Greensburg Police officers that passed by, one of which failed to intimidate the crowd by rolling by in his K-9 unit, winding his window halfway down so their obviously untrained dog could be heard barking, a laughable attempt at displaying power while being heavily outnumbered.
A few other surprising instances observed during the demonstration was the chasing off of a police surveillance drone. The crowd looked up and waved at the drone to let it know that they were aware of its presence. They then began chanting Renee Good’s name with clear rage. The drone turned and fucked off for a bit. We also observed one protester that was normally seen peace policing at the No Kings rallies screaming in anger, her fiery diatribe recorded by another protester. Finally, there was a small crowd of maybe six or seven people in full black bloc, one of which was carrying a large eco-anarchist flag and another protester waving a large red flag emblazoned with antifa’s iron front arrows.
Despite the pleas for peace from one protester, the anger at the rally was electric. There may be hope yet for these folks that are normally more concerned with the optics of symbolic action than with associating themselves with anything practical that can be considered effective in fighting back violent fascists that laugh, unmoved, at sidewalk sign-holding.
We will continue to monitor the situation while conducting our own clandestine activities in the area.