Expand<\/a><\/p>\nOAKLAND \u2014 An elementary school went on an hour\u2019s-long lockdown Wednesday and numerous residents took to the streets in outrage after federal immigration agents were seen roaming near the campus in unmarked vans, including one with a Department of Homeland Security license plate.<\/p>\n
The presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led to a chaotic morning in the diverse West Oakland neighborhood that surrounds Hoover Elementary. A nearby preschool, Harriet R Tubman CDC, also went on lockdown.<\/p>\n
At one point, the driver of a sedan appeared to flee one of the agents\u2019 vans, leading to a brief pursuit before the sedan crashed head-on into a parked car. Jackie King, a Hoover School crossing guard, told this news organization that the man had become \u201cspooked\u201d when the van with a DHS plate flashed its lights at him.<\/p>\n
The driver exited his vehicle after the crash and jogged away, according to neighborhood surveillance footage reviewed by this news organization.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Carroll Fife, whose district includes Hoover, said later in an interview that she was told the man had dropped off a child at the elementary school before seeing the ICE van.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, bystanders recorded videos of the unmarked vehicles, at one point engaging in a confrontation with an apparent agent who yelled \u201c(expletive) losers\u201d at a woman who had asked him for his badge number.<\/p>\n
Hoover Elementary canceled lessons, recess and lunch before allowing kindergarten and first-grade students to leave early for the day. Before the bell rang, residents filled the streets to watch over the neighborhood \u2014 an impromptu rally that signaled increasing preparedness among Bay Area residents in a year that has seen aggressive ICE enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an extremely hard thing for educators and the babies in there,\u201d said Olivia Udovic, who teaches at the Manzanita School but arrived from East Oakland to support the rally. \u201cBut we\u2019re stepping up to keep the community safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, ICE has detained people in\u00a0federal courthouses,\u00a0at their homes\u00a0and sometimes off the streets across the Bay Area. The heightened immigration crackdown has been a central focus of the Trump administration, which last month briefly ordered Customs and Border Protection agents to the East Bay, using Coast Guard Island in Alameda as a staging ground.<\/p>\n
After the hit-and-run crash, the Oakland Police Department issued a statement saying an \u201coutside agency\u201d had been conducting an investigation in that area of town, unbeknownst to OPD officials.<\/p>\n
The city department is now investigating the wreck, which took place just before 10 a.m. on the 800 block of 31st Street, near West Street and a few blocks from Hoover Elementary. Under the city\u2019s sanctuary policy, OPD is prohibited from coordinating with federal law enforcement.<\/p>\n
In a video posted to her social media, Fife showed the sedan being towed away and said the parked car hit, which was heavily damaged, belonged to a pregnant woman. Fife said in the video that the crash caused \u201cpanic calls\u201d among neighbors, who came outside before \u201cmasked\u201d federal agents left without arresting anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what happened after a parent was dropping their child off at school in West Oakland this morning,\u201d Fife said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same story we are hearing across the country. They wouldn\u2019t identify themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents who took to the streets after the crash held anti-ICE signs and whistles to alert others if ICE agents returned.<\/p>\n
In front of Hoover, a large group of adults circled the block, singing friendly kids\u2019 songs like \u201cItsy Bitsy Spider\u201d in preparation to calm down any frightened children.<\/p>\n
School staff began escorting students out to their parents around 1:25 p.m. \u2014 when class otherwise would have still been in session. The children were greeted with cheers from the gathered crowd.<\/p>\n
One mother picking up her child from Hoover Elementary said she \u201cwas very worried\u201d about the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try not to go out,\u201d said the woman, who declined to provide her name because she was fearful. \u201cI try to stay at home so I don\u2019t have any problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luca Y., a neighborhood resident who declined to provide his last name for fear of retaliation, said he arrived after receiving an alert of the ICE sighting from Bay Resistance, an activist group.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many of these videos are we going to watch?\u201d Luca said, referring to numerous viral videos of ICE agents detaining people in broad public view.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to actually put their bodies in the way of these agents,\u201d Luca said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take, because they\u2019ll just keep coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Oakland Unified officials reminded parents and the community that \u201cwe want you to know that your students are safe in our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe applaud our school and district staff for stepping up and navigating the situation calmly and effectively today and we also want to acknowledge the support of the larger Oakland community in standing up for their fellow Oaklanders,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community members take part in an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protest across from Hoover Elementary School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,181,23,100,180,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-64391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newsletter","13":"tag-oakland","14":"tag-oakland-headlines","15":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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