A woman has been charged with assault after she allegedly doused eight police officers in Vice President Kamala Harris’ Phoenix motorcade with red dye Friday to protest U.S. support of Israel’s brutal assault on the Gaza Strip.
Anasilvia Gomez-Zamora, 30, was standing on the sidewalk along the motorcade route with a group of about twenty protesters who were chanting “Free Palestine” and waving Palestinian flags, officers with the Phoenix Fraternal Order of Police told The Daily Beast. As the motorcade passed by, Gomez Zamora allegedly threw the red dye at the officers.
“They were clearly protesting the Gaza war,” John Simon, the president of Phoenix’s FOP said. “I believe they were the only protest group out there.”
The dye was determined to be non-hazardous and didn’t impede the motorcade’s route. Police took Gomez Zamora into custody and she was booked into Maricopa County Jail on eight charges of aggravated assault against a police officer. She was released hours later, Simon said.
Phoenix police did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Vice President Harris was campaigning in Phoenix as part of her “Fight for Your Reproductive Freedoms” tour. Just a few days before the incident, she debuted her strongest stance on Gaza yet by calling for an immediate ceasefire “for at least the next six weeks,” given the amount of human suffering in the Gaza Strip.
Conditions in Gaza have grown increasingly dire, with an estimated 31,000 dead and two million displaced since October. U.N. officials have warned of imminent famine if Israel continues to block aid by land to Gaza. The U.S. has coordinated airdrops of aid with other countries to Gazans and has proposed a temporary sea port to ferry aid in through the Mediterranean, but experts say that isn’t enough to match the need and only aid by land can materially improve conditions.
The Biden administration’s stance on Gaza has also threatened the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, with larger-than-usual number of voters in several states choosing “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries as a way to voice their disapproval.
Pro-Palestine protesters often use red paint to symbolize complicity in the bloodshed.
