The protests this weekend were part of nationwide wave of resistance following the capture of the Venezuelan president and an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.
by Sara MartinJan. 11, 2026 (Berkeleyside.org)
People in Berkeley waved signs at drivers from a highway overpass and set up outside a Chevron gas station this weekend to protest the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer and the Trump administration’s military actions in Venezuela.
Chevron’s Richmond refinery was the site of another protest aimed at the corporate giant.
Chevron is the only U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela and poised to benefit from the U.S. intervention. Earlier this month the Trump administration carried out a military operation in Venezuela on Jan. 3 to capture president Nicolás Maduro that Venezuelan officials say left more than 100 dead. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, and President Donald Trump has said part of the reason for the operation is increase American access to the country’s oil fields.
The protests were among the hundreds planned for towns and cities across the country over the weekend.
On both Saturday and Sunday afternoons in Berkeley, protesters gathered at the I-80 overpass at the north end of Aquatic Park, a site used by crowds during the “No Kings” rallies in June and October.
Signs read “No War” and “ICE murdered Renee Good,” a reference to the Minneapolis woman who was shot in the head by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday as she slowly turned her car away from agents carrying out an operation related to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
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The protest was organized by the group Visibility Brigade “in response to the onslaught of US government chaos being enacted upon residents.”
Intervening in Venezuela ‘ignores what Americans need,’ protesters say
On the corner of University Avenue and Sixth Street Sunday afternoon, amid the smell of gasoline and the steady stream of weekend traffic, stood 92-year-old Tobey Wiebe.
In her hands, she carried a piece of history: a protest sign her late husband once held in 2003 during demonstrations against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Its message: “Imperialist America is humanity’s number one enemy” — felt no less urgent to Wiebe more than two decades later.
“I’m here because I want to keep my sanity,” said Wiebe, a Berkeley resident of 56 years. “Trump is breaking all the rules and saying, ‘Catch me if you can.’”
Wiebe was one of roughly 100 demonstrators who occupied all four corners of the busy intersection near the Interstate 80 on-ramp, outside the Chevron station at 833 University Ave. The protest was organized by a chapter of the group Showing Up for Racial Justice.
For nearly two hours, the protest was met with a steady chorus of supportive honks as drivers passed by. The local residents present condemned the U.S. government’s escalating involvement in Venezuela and what they see as the outsized influence of corporate interests on American foreign policy.
While the White House has framed the operation the military strike in Caracas in which Maduro was captured as a blow against “narcoterrorism,” protesters in Berkeley expressed deep skepticism about both its motives and consequences.
Valerie Knepper, who attended the rally with her husband and several friends, said recent U.S. actions have hardened her views on American intervention abroad.
“I used to think U.S. involvement was all about oil,” Knepper said. “But I’ve realized it’s about world domination. The U.S. wants to control everyone.”
For Knepper and others, concerns about foreign policy were inseparable from anxieties closer to home. The administration’s aggressive tactics abroad, she said, have fueled fears about the erosion of democratic norms domestically.
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, Knepper said she worries the results may not be “legitimately recognized” by Republicans in Congress if they do not favor the administration.
Nearby, friends Carla Soracco and Donna Fong stood side by side on the sidewalk, gripping handmade signs as traffic rushed past. For Soracco, the morality of the strike was straightforward.
“If Trump did that to Putin to try him on war crimes, I could support it, because we know that he attacked another country,” Soracco said, referencing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “But it’s not really our business to tell other people how to run their lives or their countries.”
The Trump administration has already begun meeting with oil executives about plans to invest billions in rebuilding the country’s oil infrastructure. President Trump has suggested such efforts would make Venezuela “open for business.”
Fong argued that those resources represent a betrayal of the administration’s “America First” promises.
“The billions of dollars the U.S. is talking about pouring into oil infrastructure in Venezuela should be spent on people here,” Fong said, pointing to local crises such as affordability, homelessness and food insecurity. Instead, she said, the administration is “creating international problems while ignoring what Americans actually need.”
Richmond mayor calls Chevron a ‘monster’ at protest over refinery’s Venezuelan presence
Several hundred people gathered Saturday at Chevron’s Richmond refinery to peacefully protest the company’s presence in Venezuela. The protest was organized by a coalition of various Bay Area environmental groups networks, and speakers included Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez and former city council member Melvin Willis.
“We know what we’re fighting for: Stop pollution, stop the war, we won’t buy Chevron anymore,” sang Bonnie Lockhart and her posse of choralists, a group of singer-activists called Occupella. “Get out! Chevron, get out!”
Police had blocked off the roads in front of Gate 14, making access difficult, yet protestors arrived in droves on foot, walking from neighborhoods about 10 minutes away. The crowd stood with banners outside of Chevron’s headquarters, which were barricaded and had boarded over its sign so the logo wasn’t visible, as guest speakers took turns at the mic.
The crowd then marched down Richmond Parkway to the refinery side before later dispersing. No arrests were made and nothing appeared to be damaged.
The protest was announced late last week in response to developing global events, said Ilonka Zlatar, organizer for the Oil and Gas Action Network
Chevron has been in Venezuela (and Richmond) for more than 100 years and is “the oil company that’s most poised to profit and benefit from the actions that the United States has taken against Venezuela recently,” Zlatar said.
“We are opposed to the idea that our government should be used as a weapon for the profit of corporations.”
Martinez gave a short speech that he said he thought of “in his bathtub” that morning, calling Chevron, Richmond’s largest taxpayer, “a monster.”
“Whenever we need what is justly ours, we need to battle them, because we refuse to beg them,” Martinez said. “We will not beg Chevron to get what is rightfully ours.
“The health, the environment, the water, the air, it’s ours,” Martinez said. “If we allow Chevron to pollute them without repayment for the harm they cause us, we’re not doing our job.”
Chevron Richmond said in a written statement: “Chevron respects the rights of individuals to express their viewpoints peacefully and lawfully. Our workforce of nearly 3,000 people remains focused on safely and reliably providing the essential energy that keeps the Bay Area moving.”
Martinez was part of a Richmond City Council contingent that in 2024 won a settlement from Chevron in exchange for dropping a proposed oil refinery tax measure from the ballot.
Most of the protesters appeared to be from the Bay Area but one woman said she had come from Sacramento. Most heard about the protest on social media, through word-of-mouth, and from Mobilize.us, an online platform that promotes activist events.
Luna Angulo of Richmond, co-founder of the “kayaktivist” group Rich City Rays, attended to protest Chevron’s refinery pollution as well as to “reconnect the waterways with BIPOC youth,” she said.
Other local grassroot organizations involved in the protest were the Richmond Progress Alliance (RPA), the Asian Pacific Environment Network, Richmond for Palestine, Bay Resistance and the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Associated Press, Sebastien Bridonneau, Zoe Harwood, Ashley McBride and Zac Farber contributed reporting to this story.
