Incel of the Month Winner. 6 months in a row.
Posted on 05/16/2026 6:47:23 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Gavin Pope was arrested during a protest at an immigrant detention center in South Texas. For four months, a criminal charge hung over him. He couldn't work.
When Gavin Pope went to a federal immigrant detention center in Dilley to protest ICE, he didn’t expect it to upend his life. By nightfall, he was in jail. Days later, he was out of a job.
Pope, 25, originally from Kyle, spent his middle school years in Iowa, earned a bachelor's degree in history from Saint Louis University in 2024 and moved back to Texas to help care for his grandmother, who lives in Comal County.
He worked as a substitute teacher for Comal Independent School District and was thinking about pursuing a teaching certification. On the side, he was active in politics, volunteering as communications chair for the Comal County Democratic Party and helping to launch a Young Democrats chapter.
On Jan. 28, Pope stood outside the South Texas Family Residential Center, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Dilley, 70 miles southwest of San Antonio. He and other demonstrators were there to demand the release of 5-year-old Liam Adrian Conejo Ramos and his father, Ecuadorian nationals who were seeking asylum in the U.S.
Federal agents had arrested the two in a Minneapolis suburb where they lived and transferred them to South Texas. A photo of Liam wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as he was taken into custody drew national attention to the case.
The Jan. 28 protest unfolded amid renewed national debate over immigration enforcement and family detention. Inside the Dilley center, U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett met with Liam and his father. Outside, what had been a tense but orderly crowd of protesters began to dissipate. By mid-afternoon, fewer than 50 remained.
Conflicting accounts
Shortly after 2:20 p.m., state troopers stepped off a yellow school bus in riot gear.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement later that day that troopers responded at the request of the city of Dilley. They issued dispersal orders and fired pepper-ball munitions after protesters breached a barrier and spat on officers, DPS said.
“Texas is a law-and-order state,” the agency said.
In a probable cause affidavit obtained by the San Antonio Express-News, DPS Officer Roberto Trevino laid out the department's account of the incident.
Trevino wrote that protesters “crossed into private property and received several verbal warnings to get back.” He said Pope “was observed not complying with several of the officers' commands” and “was resisting getting out of the private property.”
The affidavit says Pope “continued to interfere with officer commands” before officers took him to the ground and placed him in handcuffs.
News media video footage shows troopers shouting “Pull back, pull back” as they advanced in a tight line, batons drawn, and pushed into a crowd of protesters and journalists.
Several officers converged on Pope and forced him to the ground. Dirt flew. People yelled.
The available footage, which may not capture the entire encounter, does not appear to show Pope resisting officers.
By Pope's account, a trooper struck him in the throat and face with a baton and grabbed his hair before forcing him face-down onto the pavement.
His mother, a travel nurse, had come with him that day. She stood back from the front line, wearing a hoodie that read, “I’m a mom and a nurse. Nothing scares me.”
Troopers arrested Pope on a charge of interference with public duties, a Class B misdemeanor, and took him to the Frio County Jail. A judge released him on a personal bond that evening around 8:30 p.m.
By the next morning, his mug shot had circulated on news sites and social media.
Frio County Sheriff's Office
That same morning, Pope logged onto Comal ISD's substitute teacher scheduling system. His assignments had vanished. An employee later told him the district had removed him from the substitute roster after being notified of his arrest. The employee told him he could reapply if prosecutors dropped the charge against him.
Two days later, on Jan. 31, Pope stepped in front of a microphone at an anti-ICE rally in downtown New Braunfels. He knew that since his arrest had gone viral, he had a unique platform to reach people. Hundreds of spectators, bundled up against a wind chill of 28 degrees, stood in Main Plaza.
They were excited to hear from Pope, who explained why he had participated in the Dilley protest.
He said he had stood at the front of the group of protesters because he believed he enjoyed a certain privilege as a middle-class white American and wanted to use it for good. “As a white man, I had the best chance of things not escalating," he said.
He scanned the crowd and urged them to stay politically engaged.
“Showing up matters,” he said. “If you see a way that you can show up, you should.”
READ MORE: Hundreds rally against ICE in New Braunfels, a Trump stronghold
'Stuck in this'
Meanwhile, the criminal charge against him sat unresolved, visible on background checks and impossible to contest. Months passed.
“I’ve been stuck in this,” Pope said. “I can’t do anything because I have an arrest record, but they won’t act on it.”
Organizers continued to stage protests in Dilley. Pope wanted to be there. Liam and his father had been freed from detention by order of a federal judge on Jan. 31. Pope thought of the other parents and children who were still detained.
“I didn’t want it to just be about Liam and then stop. There are still kids there," he said.
But he decided to stay away from Dilley because he didn't want to worry his grandmother or undermine his legal defense.
His 25th birthday came in March, and the charge was still pending. His savings were nearly gone. He was worried about his future.
'Insufficient evidence'
On May 13, Pope received welcome news. His lawyer, David Hardaway, texted to say prosecutors had decided not to pursue the misdemeanor charge.
In a letter to Hardaway dated that day, Frio County Attorney Joseph A. Sindon said there was "insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Pope was relieved. The weight of nearly four months of uncertainty had been lifted.
“It’s been something that’s been looming over my head,” Pope said. “That constant anxiety in the back of my mind is gone.”
On Tuesday, Pope will start work as a field organizer for the Texas Democratic Party.
Working out of the party's San Antonio office, he will recruit and train volunteers, coordinate voter-contact activities, and support get-out-the-vote efforts in Bexar County and surrounding areas. The position pays about $60,000, much more than he earned as a substitute teacher, and it runs through the November midterm elections.
He said he has no regrets about stepping to the front of the crowd that day in January.
“I won’t stop," he said.
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Incel of the Month Winner. 6 months in a row.
Things turned out for this boy in the end. Soros gave him a $60,000 a year job. All he has to do his pop his pimples and continue to agitate.
He/She looks like a treasonous, insurrectionist piece of crap.
Play stupid games……..
From the article: ***He worked as a substitute teacher***
Did he read the document he signed when he agreed to be a substitute teacher? You can be fired at any time for any reason. At will employment.
If he turns out to be a pedophile down the road, I won’t be a bit surprised.
You’ll stop, girly man.
Well, you may not be attractive. You may be fat and lack shoulders. But you’ll always have your insufferable self righteousness, you twit
I can’t imagine anyone read that whole article. The first couple of paragraphs made me smile, though.
Wait until the liberal, gay, RAT señators start paying him conjugal visits like they do the illegal alien gangstahs.
He looks slightly downs syndrome-ish.
CC
“Not a single letter?”
FAFO!
BoHoo?
Bew hew.
Tell this to the J6ers who were locked in the Gulag.
I was thinking the same. He has Downs Syndrome.
The San Antonio News has a very deserved reputation for being Liberal and infused with the DNA of the Democratic Party. Thus, you cannot believe anything the San Antonio News says or ANY Democrat. I’m confident Pope is a Democrat.
Hoping the “up” gets removed from “upended”. Preferably with a rope.
First thought.
Definite vibes.
I can’t imagine anyone read that whole article. The first couple of paragraphs made me smile, though.
****************************
I could not read much of it. I read the part that he and others were “demanding” release of a couple of illegals. That seems like a lot more than just protesting.
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