Free America Walkout protests against Trump unfolded across CT Tuesday: Recap

Demonstrators in Connecticut and across the country walked out of school and work on Tuesday in protest of the Trump administration as part of the national Free America Walkout protests. 

Protests were planned in some major Connecticut cities, including Hartford, New Haven, New London and Norwalk, according to the organizers' website. Protests were also planned in smaller Connecticut communities.

The protests marked one year since President Donald Trump returned to the White House after being re-elected. They also came about two weeks after an agent with U.S Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, sparking unrest across the nation, including in Connecticut. In Hartford, demonstrators protesting Good’s killing clashed with federal law enforcement earlier this month, prompting city officials to order local police to investigate.

The walkout protesters' list of demands included “investigations into and full accountability” for killings by ICE, calling them “extra judicial.”

Here’s what happened at Tuesday’s Free America Walkout protests in Connecticut:

Free America Walkouts across the country

The Women’s March, which was one of the partners for the Free America Walkout, highlighted several protests on social media on Tuesday, including in Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Oklahoma City, Okla.  

Several people speak out at Hartford rally

At the peak of the rally, there were about 250 protesters, a handful of their dogs and a steady stream of honking horns from supporting motorists as they passed. 

Several speakers took to a microphone to express their opinions, including poet laureate for the town of Manchester, Nadia Sims, who spoke of unity. 

“Get comfortable being uncomfortable because a superhero is not going to save us,” she said. “Every time a person is robbed of their personhood, they rob you too. As if diversity, equity, and inclusion doesn’t include you too.”

Shortly before 4 p.m. the crowd in Hartford quickly began to dissipate as protesters escaped the cold. 

Protester says U.S. is witnessing 'the destruction of our democracy'

Robert Amster lives in Stamford and is retired. However, on Tuesday, he stood with other people on the Fairfield Avenue bridge that stretches over Interstate 95 in Norwalk in below-freezing temperatures.

He was among a group of about 20 people who stood on the sidewalks on both sides of the road to protest Trump and the actions of him and the federal government. Some waved American flags, while others held signs with anti-ICE and anti-Trump messages.

Amster said the last time he felt compelled to protest was in 1970, when protests against the Vietnam War spread across the country. He was at the University of New Haven at the time and took part in a protest there.

“This is the worst I have seen since then,” Amster said.

Tina Duryea lives in Norwalk and is self-employed. She said “we have to be really visible” about “the destruction of our democracy” and that she has a civic responsibility to “stand up and speak out.”

“We care passionately about this country,” Duryea said. “We want it to be better.”

Ashley Gulyas is a member of the Norwalk Public Schools Board of Education and was also out on the bridge, holding a sign that said “Abolish ICE.”

She also has a 7-year-old daughter, but said the country right now was “a scary place to be raising a kid.”

“I’m certainly out here for her future,” Gulyas said.

Candidate for Fairfield first selectman protests in Bridgeport

Matthew Hallock, who is running as a petitioning candidate for Fairfield first selectman, also turned out at the Bridgeport protest.

“What we see happening in our country is not our country,” Hallock said.

He has participated in several other similar anti-Trump protests over the last few months and wishes it was having a more obvious impact.

“It’s been a year of doing this and things are like worse,” Hallock said. “It’s discouraging.”

At least 200 gathered outside of state Capitol

By 2 p.m., at least 200 people had gathered at the Capitol, chanting, beating drums and blowing whistles. Several protesters held large American flags, including at least one that was inverted — a symbol for a nation in distress.

Milford resident Andrew Rice expressed a litany of grievances regarding Trump, including his “use of ICE to terrorize immigrant communities,” as well as tariffs and cutting subsidies for Americans.

“We’re here to stand against fascism,” Rice said. “We’re going to keep protesting until this regime comes crashing down, and we actually have a government that serves the people and our interests.”

Rice also cited Trump’s foreign policies, including the administration’s attack on Venezuela and his pursuit of Greenland.  

“We’re an absolute joke, and our allies should not trust us,” Rice said. “Every ally across the world has every reason to doubt us, and that is heartbreaking.”

Veteran protester has participated in demonstrations dating back to 1960s

Bridgeport resident Beatrice Baker, 79, was not only a veteran of the past year’s worth of anti-Trump administration protests, but also of other such efforts by regular citizens to speak out during fraught times.

“I go back to civil rights (marches in the 1960s), Vietnam,” Baker recalled.

She waved a sign that read “No ICE Abuse.”

“We want to turn our country around,” she said. “To bring it back to values, justice, respect for one another.”

She believes old protest warriors like herself have a key role to play.

“A lot of us old timers are the ones holding this together right now,” Baker said.

‘I am horrified at what our government is doing,’ Bridgeport protester says

Just after 2 p.m., around 30 people gathered in Bridgeport outside of the federal courthouse at Lafayette Boulevard and State Street, two major downtown arteries. 

The group was armed with whistles, signs and banners, many of them targeting ICE. One sign had an image of Trump with the word “tyrant,” another read “No Greenland Grab,” a criticism of Trump’s rhetoric about taking over the territory of longtime ally Denmark.

The protest received fairly regular honks of support from passing motorists.

Anne Wolf, of Fairfield, held up the right side of a banner emblazoned with the phrase, “Neighbors Not ICE.”

“I am horrified at what our government is doing to not only immigrants but our own citizens,” she said of ICE’s aggressive tactics, which critics have likened to an authoritarian security force. “This feels like the only way I can do anything.”

Protesters gathered at state Capitol in Hartford

Organizers and a small group of protesters gathered in the frigid cold outside the state Capitol Tuesday afternoon as part of the national Walkout protests in response to Trump’s first year in office after being re-elected to a second term. 

Alison Greenlaw, an organizer with CT 50501, said Tuesday’s walkout was intended to show the power of the workforce and join the rally. 

“Our labor is our leverage, and if we withhold our labor, the economy stops,” she said. “This is what we may need to do in order to make change. We want ICE out of our cities.”

People are being intimidated by the Trump administration, and their constitutional rights are being threatened, Greenlaw said

“We want people to feel safe to go to work and school, and we want the infringement on our civil liberties to stop,” she said. 

Where and when protests were planned

Around a dozen protests were scheduled Tuesday in Connecticut, according to the event page from the Women’s March. Those included:

Bridgeport: 2-5 p.m. at U.S. District Court, 915 Lafayette Blvd., Bridgeport.

Brookfield: 2-3 p.m. at the Welcome to Brookfield sign at 106 Federal Road in Brookfield

Canton:2-4 p.m. at Canton Town Green, 3 Canton Green Road, Canton.

Granby: 2-4 p.m. at the intersection of CT-20 and Route 202 in Granby.

Guilford: 2-3 p.m. at the East River Preserve Fields, 1 East River Preserve Field, Guilford. Parking will be at the stump dump entrance lot on Sullivan Drive.

Hartford: 2-5 p.m. at the Connecticut state Capitol, 210 Capitol Ave. Hartford.

New Haven: 2 p.m. at the New Haven Green, 250 Temple St., New Haven, CT

New Milford:5-5:45 p.m. at the New Milford Town Green, 10 Main St., New Milford, CT.

Newtown: 2-3 p.m. at the sidewalk at Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main St., Newtown, CT.

Norwalk: 2-3 p.m. at the Fairfield Avenue Interstate 95 bridge.

West Hartford: 2-3 p.m. at Town Hall, 50 S. Main St., West Hartford, CT.

Windsor: 2-3 p.m. at the Windsor Town Green, 275 Broad St., Windsor, CT.

Who organized the protests?

The organizers' website listed a number of partners, chief among them the Women’s March, one of the organizations that protested in Trump’s first term. Other groups involved include “50501,” an organization that has protested the president’s second term, FEMINIST and Free DC.

Protesters faced bitterly cold sub-freezing winds Tuesday

Protesters faced “some of the coldest air of the season,” according to the National Weather Service. Gusty winds combined with temperatures in the teens were forecast to produce temperatures that felt to be in the single and low-double digits.

Despite the wind and cold, conditions were forecast to be mostly sunny and dry throughout Tuesday. 

Demonstrations followed several over killing of Renée Good

Tuesday’s protests came after Connecticut saw several protests earlier this month following the fatal shooting of Good in Minneapolis. 

Most of those protests went through without incident. But in Hartford, protesters clashed with federal law enforcement. Video showed a masked individual spraying protesters with what appeared to be pepper-spray during that incident. Another video showed protesters coming into contact with two vehicles attempting to leave the Abraham A. Ribicoff federal courthouse after blocking the vehicles. One of the protesters was seen in a video smashing the rear window of one of the vehicles.