A Chicago-based freelance photographer was one of three people Gary Police arrested and charged with criminal trespassing during a protest against ICE deportations at the Gary/Chicago International Airport Saturday afternoon.
Matthew Kaplan, 69, told the Post-Tribune Sunday, as well as in an account on his social media page, that he was among 30 to 40 protestors who walked from a South Shore Train stop around a mile away along Industrial Road to the airport. The airport has been the site of Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights to Texas since 2013, as undocumented immigrants are transported from a Chicago-area detention center after a judge has ordered their deportation.
The protestors carried signs that read, “Abolish ICE,” “Education Not Deportation” and “No Human is Illegal,” and were a bit rowdy and loud with their chanting, but no one was violent, he said.
When they got to the airport, one of the protestors tried to affix a banner to the chain-link fence, but Airport employees stopped them, Kaplan said. After about 10 minutes, the group started marching back to the train station when at least 10 Gary Police squad cars showed up, and officers yelled for them to get off the road.
The group eventually moved, Kaplan said, but as soon as they got onto the grass on the shoulder, Gary officers started “pushing people down and arresting them,” he said. As he was taking pictures of the situation, an officer arrested him; a friend of his grabbed his camera equipment as he was cuffed.
A second protestor, who asked that their name not be used for fear of retaliation, confirmed Kaplan’s account. They said they’ve been at many airport protests over the past few years but never saw the Gary Police respond so harshly.
“There would be police around, but they just kind of stood back. These officers immediately started tackling people when they got out of their cars. They were punching people and putting their knees on (protestors’) necks, and one of the sergeants drew his baton and was yelling, ‘This isn’t Chicago’,” the protestor said. “It was unfathomable, to be honest, and more officers just kept arriving.”
As the group got back to their vehicles, at least eight Lake County Police squad cars showed up as well, the protestor said, and while they didn’t join the fracas, the protestor didn’t understand why they were there for only 40 people.
“I kept thinking, ‘Are they going to follow us home, now?’” the protestor said. “There were a lot of young people there, and I was genuinely scared. We have rights; we’re supposed to have freedom here.”
The Anti-Deportation rally was part of a wave of protests across the country in the days prior to the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, whose administration has promised mass deportation efforts that could start as early as Tuesday in Chicago, according to various news reports.
Lake County Oscar Martinez Jr. confirmed via text Sunday that the Gary Police Department called county for traffic control but were called off when they arrived because the crowd of 30 or 40 people was dispersing.
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton didn’t respond to requests for comment as he was in Washington, D.C. Gary Police spokesman Cmdr. Jack Hamady didn’t respond to requests asking whether they’d arrested a photographer on the scene.
Kaplan spent about two hours in lock up at the Gary City Jail, where he said he wasn’t mistreated in any way. Along with the criminal trespassing, Kaplan has been charged with Disorderly Conduct and Resisting Law Enforcement, according to court documents, and will appear at 9 a.m. Wednesday before Gary City Judge Deirdre Monroe.
“I’m almost 70, and I’ve been photographing demonstrations for years now. Even though I didn’t have a press pass, I felt like it was clear that I was acting like a journalist,” Kaplan said. “As I was sitting there in lock-up, I was feeling that however bad this is for me, I was pretty sure I was going home. But there are a lot of people who are much more afraid than I am right now.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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