Dozens of protestors demonstrated outside the Alexandria home of acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on Sunday, and called for him to end actions against protestors throughout the country by federal agents.
“We live among the people who are wreaking havoc on this country,” one protestor said. “He goes out and commits these atrocities every day. He’s not elected. He’s not Senate confirmed. He is an acting appointee of Donald Trump… We will not be good Germans. We will not be the people who sat by and watched our neighbors commit these atrocities.”
Alexandria has had a number of peaceful protests since the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, however other protests, such as in Portland, Oregon, are currently being suppressed by federal agents at the direction of Wolf, who appeared on Fox News on Sunday defending the deployments.
A majority of the protestors wore masks, and only City Councilman John Taylor Chapman was an identifiable public figure who attended the event. He recorded it on his phone and did not provide a comment. Wolf’s next-door neighbors provided water and snacks for protestors and said that he is otherwise a nice neighbor who does not talk about work.
Jonathan Krall, executive director of Grassroots Alexandria, said that Wolf is at the center of a fearful endeavor for the country.
“He is sending people out to behave like secret police,” Krall said. “He’s attempting to change the standard by which our police behave in the country. Here in Alexandria, we’re fighting for police data transparency. We need police be more transparent in all all levels, and he’s (Wolf is) doing the opposite. The people being picked up without documentation, without any record of why they’re being arrested completely destroys accountability, and you need accountability in policing.”
It was not the first time protestors have appeared outside the home of a DHS Secretary. In 2018, protestors angry about family separations and arrests at the border collected outside the Old Town home of then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
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Staff photos by James Cullum
