A sheriff in Florida issued an ominous warning to people planning protests opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in his county this weekend.
“If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at,” Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said during a Friday press conference. “Because we will kill you graveyard dead.”
“We’re not going to play,” he added.
Demonstrations have been taking place nationwide after ICE raids and days of tension in Los Angeles in recent weeks. President Donald Trump has already authorized the deployment of 700 Marines and 2,000 National Guard troops to California. The Los Angeles Police Department said earlier this week that it had started making “mass arrests."
Roughly 1,800 nationwide rallies in opposition to ICE and the Trump administration more broadly are planned for this weekend. The demonstrations on Saturday will coincide with a military parade in Washington, D.C., celebrating the Army’s 250th birthday and Trump’s 79th.
Ivey, the Florida sheriff, also threatened protesters who turn “violent” in other ways — including by resisting orders, blocking intersections, fleeing arrest or gathering around cars to stop traffic — with jail time and hospitalization.
Speaking earlier this week, Trump pledged to crack down on any protesters in the nation’s capital during his planned parade, saying that they would be met with “very heavy force.”
