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.
A Texas teacher took part in an ICE protest. It upended his life.
****************************************
Should have read:
A Texas teacher took part in an ICE protest. It upended his life. Then he trashed his own life.
He doesn’t have many of the facial features of Downs syndrome. They tend to have small rounded or folded ears and the ears are set low. Their eyes tend to be almond shaped and slanted upwards as the eye approaches the outer edge of the face. The inner part of the eye openings close to the nose usually has a skin fold. He does have a relatively smaller mouth, but not the large tongue. His face doesn’t look flat, and his nose is not flat.
If he has Down’s syndrome it would be pitiful and sad
Since he probably doesn’t have Down’s syndrome his actions and his attitude are most condemnable. He might have sub 100 IQ, and be a person with poor impulse control. In colloquial terms, a real “dipsh*t”
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/down-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20355977
I read the whole thing. Just what you’d expect. But it’s interesting how these so-called protesters feel that once they gather to protest their righteous cause the laws in general no longer apply to them because they’re special. He wasn’t arrested for protesting, he was arrested for trespassing and refusing to leave. If they stayed off Federal property and obeyed the law they could have stood there and yelled and protested all day long and not had a problem.
Crap ass articles talk about people getting arrested for protesting and that’s not why they’re getting arrested. More fake journalism
SORRY, THAT IS NOT A SAD STORY.
People getting stabbed to death are sad stories.
Turns out your “hero” is just a punk.
It upended his life for four months. Now he has a job. Look at what the people who were invited into the Capitol had to go through.
Nothing like wasting your life being a paid agitator and troublemaker.
My guess is this is a Fetal Alcohol Syndrome adult.
Could be....back in the day, young docs and other health care workers used to describe non Down’s syndrome kids who looked a bit different as FLK’s....
Funny Looking Kids.....
It shows how little they knew about the specific causes of FLK’s...but I remember that some of the kids had deformed bodies, large or small heads, and neurological, behavioural issues. Pretty damn sad. One kid had to wear a football helmet, cause he would bash his head against walls, spontaneously. Hard to contemplate living like that.
That’s a punch-able face right there.....don’t like the eyes...glad he’s not around kids any more.
“The available footage, which may not capture the entire encounter, does not appear to show Pope resisting officers.“
Being there and failure to stop being there when so ordered is resisting. He didn’t resist the actual take down because he was effectively neutralized by the batons.
Teacher?
Hardly, he was a substitute flunky with an ego inflated by a closet full of participation trophies.
From the article:
“On Tuesday, Pope will start work as a field organizer for the Texas Democratic Party.”
Way down at the bottom of that nauseating piece ...
He’s workin’ it - in that orange ensemble...
That’s a ‘Nancy boy’!
Arrested on child porno7charges with in a year is my prediction.
If Pope wants ILLEGALS so badly, he should open his house to them. But most of those morons when asked to contribute they said - The Government should help. Sorry, the TAXPAYERS said F the ILLEGALS we don’t want them...
Suppose this exact same story took place at a pro-life protest at an abortion clinic. A 20-something year old male teacher gets arrested for refusing to leave when ordered by police. They take him down just like this case, charge him with the same crime. Four months later the charges get dropped for lack of evidence. How many sympathetic articles would this paper have run in that case? I’m in Pennsylvania, but I’m pretty sure I would be able to hear the crickets chirping from here.
FAFO.
Six digit$ and 4 years later = substitute middle school teacher
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