ICE’d out by sheriff
Vowed no cooperation in Georgia
The sheriff of the Georgia county where a Venezuelan migrant allegedly murdered nursing student Laken Riley had campaigned on refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, a resurfaced interview shows.
“It is not my intention, when elected sheriff, to cooperate with those detainers,” John Williams, now the sheriff of Athens-Clarke County, said in a 2020 interview with Athens Political Nerds.
He was referring to detainers ICE placed on illegal immigrants who were arrested on criminal charges.
“Building relationships is key and if we’re antagonizing people because they are undocumented, then they built that fear in them, and they’re not likely to come to us — not only when we need their help, but when they need our help,” Williams said. “So that’s not something that we’d be doing. We won’t be doing any type of roundups and we won’t be contributing to that culture of fear.
“We want people to respect the police, but we also want them to trust us.”
The 2020 interview resurfaced online shortly after Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz was brutally heckled over his own soft stance on immigration. On Wednesday, he defended his position over the shouts of the hecklers, attempting to dismiss what he described as “the notion of a sanctuary city” on his turf.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, is charged with murdering Riley, 22, in a secluded area on the University of
Georgia campus when the nursing student was out for a jog last week. She died of blunt-force trauma.
Ibarra is charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another.
He had entered the country illegally in 2022 but was released pending “future proceedings,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said.
Meanwhile, Athens-Clarke District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez removed herself from the case amid criticism that she’s failed to secure a single guilty verdict since her election in 2020.
Gonzalez, a Democrat, appointed veteran attorney Sheila Ross as special prosecutor.
“We will not allow this or any other case to be used for political gain,” Gonzalez said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp publicly expressed his concerns that she would not be able to handle the high-profile case, while other critics have accused her of being a weak prosecutor.