Crowds turned out to Splash Pad Park on Sunday, joining similar demonstrations across the U.S.
by Natalie Orenstein and Jerome ParmerJan. 12, 2026 (Oaklandside.org)
Crowds in Oakland joined demonstrators across the country on Sunday to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign and the fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of an unarmed woman, Renee Good, in Minneapolis.
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Sunday’s protests — which took place in more than 1,000 locations, according to NPR — were designed to call out a “broader pattern of unchecked violence and abuse carried out by federal immigration enforcement agencies against vulnerable and innocent people,” said organizers with Indivisible.
In Oakland, protesters rallied at Splash Pad Park, across from the Grand Lake Theater.
One participant, who gave her name as AJ, brought along her two children. All three held handmade signs, the youngest’s a colorful abstraction.
“We are here protesting Trump’s police state jeopardizing the lives and safety of our neighbors in the community,” AJ said. “I am here on behalf of families that are too scared to appear in public to speak out.”
Trump and members of his administration have defended Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, as she was observing ICE operations from her car, calling her a “domestic terrorist” and a “professional agitator.” Democratic officials have pushed back on those characterizations and said video of the shooting does not show that she tried to run over the agent, as the administration has claimed.
Natalie Orenstein
Natalie Orenstein is a senior reporter covering City Hall, housing and homelessness for The Oaklandside. Her reporting on a flood of eviction cases following the end of the Alameda County pandemic moratorium won recognition from the Society of Professional Reporters NorCal in 2024. Natalie was previously on staff at Berkeleyside, where she covered education, including extensive, award-winning reporting on the legacy of school desegregation in Berkeley Unified. Natalie lives in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and has only left her beloved East Bay once, to attend Pomona College.More by Natalie Orenstein
