Undocumented Mexican immigrants are photographed while being processed at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in Phoenix, Ariz., April 28, 2010. (John Moore/Getty Images)
(JTA) — A grand jury declined to indict a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who drove his truck into a row of Jewish protesters at an ICE detention center.
Capt. Thomas Woodworth resigned his position days after the August incident at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, where protesters were blocking an entrance. The demonstrators were part of Never Again Action, a new Jewish group protesting ICE and U.S. immigration policy by getting arrested at ICE detention facilities.
The grand jury voted not to indict other ICE officers on the scene.
The investigation included interviews with more than 70 witnesses, according to the Boston Globe.
“The grand jury worked really hard to sort through the evidence and testimony that was presented to them,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said Wednesday, according to the Globe.
Regarding Never Again Action, he said, “I recognize there is disappointment here, I understand how they feel, and it is not lost on me the pain that they’re in.”
Never Again Action condemned the decision and called on the Wyatt facility to be closed.
“We are greatly disappointed that Mr. Woodworth will not be held accountable for his irresponsible, dangerous, and violent actions against peaceful protesters on August 14, nor will the officers who recklessly deployed pepper spray into the crowd that night,” the group’s Rhode Island chapter said in a statement Wednesday. “Mr. Woodworth should be in jail but, more importantly, the Wyatt should be shut down, the state should ban all collaboration with ICE, and ICE detainees at the Wyatt should be freed.”
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