Courtesy Alexis Figuereo (2021)
Protest flyer.
Saratoga Springs activist Lexis Figuereo has left the group All of Us, he said in an interview today, and is aligned with Saratoga Black Lives Matter, which he sees as an alignment with ideas, not as much as with an organized group. He and his sister are organizing a rally for this Sunday at 3 p.m. in Congress Park.
The protest comes after what he calls attacks from the Facebook group, Moving Saratoga Forward. The Facebook page reposted a blog post on SaratogaSpringsPolitics.com that shows a group of people practicing a protest method called “swarming” in which protestors swarm an individual getting arrested in order to push back and stop police. The post says All of Us is involved and calls on Figuereo to put a stop to it.
Figuereo says it was not anything he was involved in and that it shows people from the Troy or Albany area, not people from the Saratoga area. The alley in the video looks as if it could be anywhere. [There are markings on two nearby buildings, but they could not be made out by this writer.]
The Facebook group also highlighted a talk that Figuereo and his sister Chandler Higgenbottom gave about civil liberties and protest to Saratoga High Schoolers via zoom. That story is found here in the Times-Union. The post accuses the school of taking equity too far and claims the school backtracked and agreed. The school said it is merely looking at its policies.
Maire Masterson, the deputy commissioner for Accounts in the city, said Figuereo has not applied for a permit to protest, and that the permit can help: "It's mostly for the police department so they can plan."
The police are aware of the protest this weekend, said Robin Dalton, the commissioner of public safety.
She added that there is nothing illegal about protesting without the permit, but "it's problematic." She believes the police can help direct traffic and keep people safe.
“I would never, ever, ever, pay the city of Saratoga Springs to protest against the city of Saratoga Springs,” Figuereo said. Fundamentally, “We don’t trust you.”
Many interviews with him turn back to two events: last summer's protest that ended up with the police shooting pepper bullets on protestors; and the death of Darryl Mount, a black man who was chased by police and died, police say, after falling from scaffolding, but others say the type of bruising would come from battering, not falling. The protest is aimed partially at those topics.
Figuereo said he also wants to keep pressure on the city to follow its police reform recommendations approved on March 31. Among the recommendations was the requirement that the mayor's office create another task force. That task force--required by June 1--will consider the creation of a Civilian Review Board to oversee the police. The mayor's office has not returned a request for comment about the progress on this.
For more about the police reform task force and resolution, read here.
Editor's note: We made a mistake in the police actions during the protest. It has been corrected.