Members of Milwaukee County’s Board of Supervisors are hosting an informational community event focused on safe and lawful protesting with a focus on protester rights, safety considerations and legal resources.
The event, called “How to Protest Safely,” will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 18 at the Washington Park Senior Center, 4420 W. Vliet St., according to a news release announcing the event.
It will feature insights and comments from elected officials, law enforcement leaders and civil rights and legal advocacy organizations ‒ including Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and representatives from the ACLU of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Turners and the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee.
The event is hosted by Supervisors Shawn Rolland, Caroline Gómez-Tom and Sky Capriolo.
All three supervisors recently expressed concerns about resident and protester safety during a Feb. 5 board meeting, where the board approved a measure aimed at staking claim over county-owned parks in preparation for the possibility of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement moving into the area.
At the Feb. 5 meeting, supervisors criticized the federal agency’s escalation of detentions in Minnesota that have drawn widespread protests and led to the fatal shooting of two protesters by federal agents.
The Trump administration announced earlier in the week that it would withdraw 700 federal immigration personnel from Minnesota, and local officials recently told the Journal Sentinel there is not yet evidence that federal agents plan to move into Wisconsin.
But the parks measure and the Feb. 18 event signal local officials’ desire to show residents they’re leveraging the tools at their disposal prepare for the possibility of ICE enforcement surge in the Milwaukee area.
The event announcement does not specifically mention ICE, but it comes one week after Milwaukee Common Council member Alex Brower held a highly attended town hall at the Vivarium, where police officials responded to questions about how the department would address an immigration enforcement surge.
Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X at @levensc13.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County supervisors to host protester rights and safety event
Reporting by Claudia Levens, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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