By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
OLEAN — Protesters demonstrated outside Lincoln Park Saturday afternoon to mark President Trump’s first year in office of his second term and seek an end to ICE aggressive tactics against American citizens.
It was billed locally as “Free America: A Year of Protest.”
As has been the case in nearly a dozen past demonstrations, a single anti-protester carried on his own campaign on the opposite side of Main Street.
Dave Nealy, a veteran who carries an American Flag and taunts the protesters — sometimes with a bullhorn — is usually alone on the other side of the street, but gets occasional encouragement from motorists like a thumbs up gesture.
The main protest, organized locally by Voices of the People, drew up to 90 demonstrators with signs over the course of two hours.
Temperatures in the mid-20s may have been responsible for 20-25 fewer protesters than last Saturday when there was a demonstration over the ICE killing of a Minneapolis demonstrator.
“After a year of Trump, there’s a lot to disagree with,” said Jessica Davis, one of the local organizers who took turns leaving protesters in chants. “ICE, invading other countries, taking away people’s health insurance” to name a few, she said.
There were also veterans at the demonstration protesting cuts to veterans programs, she said.
Demonstrators also collected food and cash donations for local unhoused individuals through Olean Mutual Aid, Davis said.
“It’s been a tough, brutal past couple of weeks” starting with the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. “You have to watch videos to keep up with what’s going on.
Davis said all this has been a distraction from the Justice Department’s release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Even some Republicans are saying “this is not what we signed up (voted) for,” she said. “This is not our America, where there is liberty and justice for all.”
