Demonstrators return to immigration jail after attack, death
Posted July 14, 2019 5:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TACOMA, Wash. — Demonstrators have returned to an immigration jail in Washington state a day after an armed man threw incendiary devices at the detention centre and later died.
Willem Van Spronsen was found dead Saturday after four police officers arrived and opened fire.
KOMO-TV reports demonstrators returned Sunday to the privately run Tacoma Northwest Detention Center.
The facility holds migrants pending deportation proceedings. The detention centre has also held immigration-seeking parents separated from their children under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, an effort meant to deter illegal immigration.
The demonstrators are protesting the facility and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups that are supposed to begin Sunday.
Van Spronsen’s friend, Deb Bartley, told The Seattle Times she thinks he wanted to provoke a fatal conflict. She describes him as an anarchist.
The Associated Press