A prison officer has quit days after driving his truck into a crowd of Jewish activists who were protesting the US government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Footage of the incident has been widely shared online, showing demonstrators from Jewish activist group Never Again Action fleeing as the large black SUV drives towards them.
They had been sitting in a row, blocking the entrance to the car park of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
As he drove slowly through the crowd, protesters banged their hands against the car, with some chanting “Shame”.
They had been demonstrating against ICE, which has drawn criticism for its treatment of suspected illegal immigrants, as well as the conditions in the US-run migrant camps on the Mexico border.
It was one of dozens of nationwide protests coordinated by Never Again Action.
The group said that four of its members had been taken to hospital, calling for criminal charges to be brought against Captain Thomas Woodworth.
It was also reported that other prison officers pepper-sprayed some of the protesters.
In a statement obtained by the local WJAR-TV news station, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility announced that the corrections officer had resigned.
The detention centre said the incident, which took place on Wednesday night local time, remained under investigation by the Rhode Island State Police “and under internal investigation by the Wyatt”.
It had earlier been reported by the local Providence Journal that Capt Woodworth had been placed on administrative leave.
Never Again Action said: “If these officers felt empowered to attack a group of protesters in front of the public and the media, imagine what kind of violence must be taking place inside the prison, out of sight, against vulnerable immigrants and people of colour.”
The group describes itself as a “mass mobilisation of Jews who are organising to shut down ICE and hold the political establishment accountable for enabling both the deportation machine that has separated immigrant families across the US for decades and the current crisis at the border”.
On its website, it adds: “We were taught to never let anything like the Holocaust happen again. We know from our own history what happens when a government targets, dehumanizes and strips an entire group of people of all their civil and human rights.
“We understand it to be our community’s obligation to stand up when we see history repeat itself and to declare, Never Again means Never Again for anybody.”
