{"id":224354,"date":"2026-03-17T22:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224354\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T22:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T22:49:17","slug":"teens-walked-out-of-school-to-protest-ice-police-are-investigating-the-adults-who-helped-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/224354\/","title":{"rendered":"Teens walked out of school to protest ICE. Police are investigating the adults who helped them"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Fresno Resistance co-founder Alfred Aldrete awoke from uneasy dreams one morning last month, he found himself the focus of community gossip and, he believes, a target of the local police department.<\/p>\n

Aldrete and a small group of volunteers escorted about 50 high school students on a walkout in protest of immigration enforcement last month in the city of Clovis, population 128,000, where Donald Trump won every precinct in the 2024 presidential election \u2013 some with more than 70% of the vote.<\/p>\n

During the mile-long walk, a police officer asked Aldrete for his name, date of birth and phone number.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really did the old, \u2018We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,\u2019 \u201d Aldrete said. \u201cAnd they weren\u2019t stopping any of these (counterprotesters) who were driving by, smogging, throwing water or yelling s\u2014. But they did stop me and two of the other adults.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next morning, the Clovis Police Department announced it was considering charging as many as six adults<\/a> with a crime under Section 272 of the California Penal Code, which forbids adults from inducing students into truancy.<\/p>\n

Police have not arrested anyone in connection with the protest, and the Fresno County District Attorney hasn\u2019t filed any charges. Still, Aldrete is anticipating being charged because he was stopped and questioned by the police.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Larry Valenzuela \/ CalMatters<\/p>\n

A Clovis Police Department vehicle at the police headquarters in Clovis on Feb. 26, 2026. <\/p>\n

The walkout on Feb. 10 was part of a national protest weeks after federal immigration enforcement agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota. But only a handful of police departments in the country have threatened criminal charges against adults who escorted the students during the protests: Clovis and the Los Angeles Police Department.<\/p>\n

The LAPD issued a warning<\/a> after school walkouts culminated in a protest outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown LA.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny adult who collects or picks up a child and transports them to participate in any illegal activities may be responsible for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor and is subject to arrest and prosecution,\u201d the warning read.<\/p>\n

So far, no one has been arrested or prosecuted.<\/p>\n

The Clovis Police Department went further than LAPD by publicly stating it\u2019s investigating a few specific people for potential charges, without naming them.<\/p>\n

The law enforcement agencies are citing a code that\u2019s most often used to prevent chronic truancy, called inducing the delinquency of a minor. The Fresno County District Attorney\u2019s Office has filed about 20 such charges each year for at least the last five years. Those charges, said spokesperson Taylor Long, are usually related to harboring runaways, providing alcohol to minors or involving minors in other crimes, like theft.<\/p>\n

Nationally, students have faced suspensions<\/a> because of the walkouts, but it\u2019s rare to see adults threatened with charges associated with the walkouts outside of California.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, prosecutors are reviewing footage of Quakertown\u2019s police chief putting a 15-year-old girl in what appeared to be a chokehold<\/a> during a school walkout. In Texas, state Attorney General Ken Paxton said he will investigate teachers in three school districts<\/a> where students participated in walkouts.<\/p>\n

\"Alfred<\/p>\n

Larry Valenzuela \/ CalMatters<\/p>\n

Alfred Aldrete addresses a crowd of protesters in front of a federal immigration office in downtown Fresno on Jan. 30, 2026. The march is part of a nationwide shutdown against federal immigration raids.<\/p>\n

Aldrete runs the Fresno Resistance group with his twin brother. He\u2019s been out of work as a heating, ventilation and air conditioning technician since late last year. The protest movement is, for the time being, his vocation.<\/p>\n

The question at the heart of the investigation is about the adults\u2019 involvement. Were the students themselves lured into participating in a walkout, or did they organize on their own? Can students younger than 18 make that decision for themselves? And how does the school board overseeing its districts define the line between students\u2019 right to free expression and the schools\u2019 duty to protect their kids?<\/p>\n

Despite repeated requests by CalMatters, no member of the Clovis Unified School District Governing Board responded to questions about the walkout or potential charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what was happening is Clovis took the visual context of the walkouts (in Fresno) and were kind of sitting and thinking, what can we do to extinguish this fire before it gets started,\u201d Aldrete said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of Clovis are having a really hard time swallowing the fact that these students put together and orchestrated this all on their own intelligence and an adult level of understanding of their constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The town\u2019s police force, and the broader conservative movement, insist that adults present at the walkouts are still responsible for the march and potentially liable for the students missing school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am more and more convinced as I watch more and more of these kinds of walkouts happen that this is not organic,\u201d said Lance Christensen, a 2022 candidate for state superintendent of public instruction. \u201cThis is largely adult agitators pushing these kids to be radical activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The adults who followed student protest<\/p>\n

\"Buchanan<\/p>\n

Larry Valenzuela \/ CalMatters<\/p>\n

Buchanan High School in Clovis on Feb. 26, 2026. Students staged a walkout earlier that month as part of a nationwide protest against federal immigration raids. <\/p>\n

As students walked out of Clovis\u2019 Buchanan High School on that sunny February morning, they found two groups of adults waiting for them.<\/p>\n

One was from Fresno Resistance; the other a counterprotest led by a conservative livestreamer<\/a> who was present during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at this guy,\u201d said the livestreamer, Josh Fulfer, aiming his camera at a protester whose face was covered, according to a two-hour recording he posted to the conservative social media site Rumble. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want a predator around my children if they were marching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students walked from their high school to a strip mall, where they stood on the sidewalk and held up signs that said \u201cWe are not animals\u201d and \u201cYou voted for a felon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fresno Resistance volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests walked alongside the marchers. They stayed until the sun went down, said Liliana, 17, a Buchanan High School student who didn\u2019t want her last name used for fear of reprisal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of people in big, loud trucks that were revving their engines or blowing smoke at us or stuff like that\u201d during the march and protest, she said. \u201cAnd there was a lot of people that kept flipping us off.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

Screenshot via ABC30 Fresno<\/p>\n

Students from the Clovis Unified School District walk out of class on Feb. 10, 2026, as part of a nationwide protest against federal immigration raids. <\/p>\n

\u201cI recognized probably about three of them that were revving the smoke at us, they were seniors from our school.\u201d<\/p>\n

The marchers were also joined by the Clovis Police Department\u2019s \u201cCamera on Wheels\u201d car,<\/a> a decommissioned vehicle equipped with multiple high-resolution cameras that can record and send real-time feeds to the department for up to a week at a time, along with about 500 cameras on a city network that is monitored by the police.<\/p>\n

Liliana said she helped organize the walkout when she saw other schools organizing a national walkout, and said she got in contact with Fresno Resistance members just days before the march.<\/p>\n

A Clovis Unified School District spokesperson said the students could have used designated protest areas on campus instead of walking off campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like it would make more of an impact (walking off campus) than just staying for a 30-minute lunch and doing a protest,\u201d Liliana said.<\/p>\n

Aldrete said it\u2019s disappointing that students participating in their first protest faced immediate backlash from their community. He said he hopes it doesn\u2019t stop them from participating in future protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the point of their lives where their eyes are being opened,\u201d Aldrete said. \u201cA lot of them, this is their first time doing something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Clovis\u2019 history means to city<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Larry Valenzuela \/ CalMatters<\/p>\n

The town sign hanging over Clovis Avenue in Old Town Clovis on Feb. 28, 2026. <\/p>\n

Clovis loves its history, from the log flume that ferried lumber into the local sawmill to Big Hat Days, where people wear big Western hats. Its middle school retained the name<\/a> \u201cThe Chieftains\u201d despite a plan to change it last year after California banned Native American mascots \u2013 the school district found last-minute support from the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians to keep the name.<\/p>\n

The animating myth of Clovis is about bad people from the big city coming to steal from people. It\u2019s based on a true story, about a day in 1924 when three people from the Bay Area held up the First State Bank and made off with more than $30,000.<\/p>\n

So they reenact the crime, year after year, at the city\u2019s Big Dry Creek Museum and they explain what happened in the end, which is that two of the three bank robbers were caught and hanged.<\/p>\n

\"Actors<\/p>\n

Larry Valenzuela \/ CalMatters<\/p>\n

Actors take part in a reenactment of an infamous bank robbery during a tour.<\/p>\n

But there are the parts of its history Clovis doesn\u2019t openly embrace. It had a reputation as a sundown town, which historically meant that people of color were not welcome after dark, and could face violence if they stayed.<\/p>\n

In a 2019 KVPR story about the Green Book directory of safe places for Black people before and after segregation, longtime Fresno County resident Dorythea Williams told the station<\/a> that she never needed the Green Book to tell her to avoid Clovis. As a Black person, it wasn\u2019t just closed to her after nightfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could not stop in Clovis in the daytime,\u201d Williams told KVPR.<\/p>\n

Some, like Aldrete, see the ICE protests and the police conduct as an extension of that history, noting that some Fresno kids of color are told to obey a simple motto: Don\u2019t cross State Route 168 from Fresno, where the signs are green, into Clovis, where the signs are brown.<\/p>\n

He repeated a common saying in the Central Valley concerning Clovis, \u201cWhen the signs turn brown, turn around.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

And yet Clovis defies easy stereotypes: On the walls of its museum are photos of high school classes from a century ago. There are Black and Asian students mingled with the majority white population as early as 1933. Its history is one of mostly prosperity.<\/p>\n

Its identity is formed in part by its distinction from neighboring Fresno and the other large urban centers of the Central Valley, along with its wealth: The median household income in Clovis was $99,000 in 2024, far higher than the $71,000 median household income in Fresno.<\/p>\n

Aldrete said he\u2019s expecting a call any day now to report to the Clovis Police Department and face charges related to his presence at the walkout.<\/p>\n

But the potential criminal charges in Clovis have not scared off other student-led and faith-based protest groups from getting in touch with Fresno Resistance. In fact, he said, all the hubbub has drawn more attention their way.<\/p>\n

The day after the protest, the Fresno Resistance could not receive emails. Their inbox was full.<\/p>\n

CalMatters visual journalist Larry Valenzuela contributed reporting for this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n