Grandma Arrested for trying to give Toys to Detained Children

A group of 35 volunteers, including a grandmother, Elizabeth DeCou, and Jesse Ingber, were arrested while attempting to deliver toys to a shelter for migrant children in the Bay Area on Sunday. The Berkeley group, “Solidaridad con Niños,” organized the effort to bring toys, books, and sing lullabies in Spanish to the Baptist Child and Family Services shelter on Pennsylvania Avenue. Police and a security guard from the shelter blocked their entry to the facility and asked them to step off the property. The police arrested DeCou, 66, for misdemeanor trespassing and Ingber, 27, for the same offense. DeCou, a registered nurse and child abuse victim advocate from Oakland, said she demanded information on the safety and well-being of the children, but officers refused to provide any information.

She spent six hours in custody and was cited for trespassing. Baptist Child and Family Services is a nonprofit organization that contracts with the federal government to house unaccompanied migrant children. The shelter in Fairfield has been identified in several news reports as one of the nonprofits currently sheltering some of the migrant children who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.