Weekly Member Update - July 13, 2026
We’ve all seen this photograph countless times by now. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo beaming over a birthday cake on his recent 52nd birthday while standing in the home that he built with his bare hands for his wife and three American sons. That home is just one of the countless homes built by Lorenzo and his crew in the Houston area since he came to the United States from Mexico 35 years ago, when Houston had half the population it does now. Lorenzo was undocumented, but he was living the American dream regardless, working an honest life of hard work and family. Up before dawn every day, providing jobs to countless workers and contributing to the tax base, content to sit on his porch with his dog every evening, Lorenzo has had no run-ins with the law, no controversy. Lorenzo was just a proud dad who, along with his teenage-sweetheart wife, had put three boys through college to become a school teacher and two engineers. With his sons having reached adulthood, Lorenzo had just begun the process of obtaining a family-based immigration visa, hoping to make his presence finally legal in the Country he has called home for his entire adult life.
And then ICE murdered him; shot him in the right abdomen through the open passenger door as he sat in the driver’s seat of his white work van. And the monsters didn’t bother to tell his family, who only learned of the shooting when a son recognized his father’s screams on a Facebook video. As they have incredulously done with Renée Good and countless others, ICE immediately absolved its officers of any wrongdoing, blaming Lorenzo for his own murder, claiming he had rammed an ICE vehicle and “weaponized” his vehicle to try and run over an ICE officer. Even though ICE has imprisoned the direct witnesses to what really happened — that being members of Lorenzo’s work crew, including Lorenzo’s own brother — and has pressured them to self-deport in a clumsy attempt to try and cover up ICE’s crimes, the American surveillance state has ironically made the cover-up almost impossible. Already, cameras everywhere have begun to tell the real story of ICE playing cops and robbers, unmarked SUVs amateurishly trying to pull over Lorenzo’s vehicle and, when they failed, they shot Lorenzo to avenge their abject humiliation. And then we hear that Lorenzo’s death was a case of mistaken identity, because ICE really wanted another white work van full of brown men. Lorenzo’s family has called for an independent investigation, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has demanded criminal prosecutions for the murderers of Lorenzo and other Mexican nationals. With Jonathan Ross still walking the streets, excuse us if we’re skeptical that justice for Lorenzo will come anytime soon.
The federal government didn't stop abducting — and killing — our neighbors when Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino went away. They just got smarter and quieter about it. ICE still has an objective of 2,000 abductions every single day, and Wired reported back in February that ICE is quietly leasing office space in suburban areas throughout the country in order to expand its national bootprint. ICE has recently leased a 42,000-square-foot warehouse in Newburgh for God knows what, and ICE has also announced plans to expand the 650-bed Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia now that it can no longer use New York’s County jails to imprison people, except in those Counties willing to defy state law to stay cozy with ICE, that is. And, it’s not just blue states — at least 100 people were abducted from Bozeman, Montana over the Holiday weekend — and its not just ICE — Tennessee National Guards operating under the auspices of Trump’s “anti-crime task force” in Memphis shot and killed an American citizen on Monday morning, the fourth such killing since September, when federal forces undertook a full-blown occupation of Memphis. And, lest we forget, it’s quickly becoming illegal to even amplify news stories, like we’re doing this very moment, when the federal government doesn’t like what the reporting is saying about its nefarious immigration-related activities.
When you stand in protest outside the Guilderland branch of Citizens Bank this coming Saturday morning, keep Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and his family in your thoughts, because the cruel complicity of Citizens Bank and the murder of Lorenzo are all part of the same meat-grinding machine. ICE kidnaps members of our communities and confines them in concentration camps maintained by private prison contractors that are funded by Citizens Bank. So, when we call on individuals and institutions to divest from Citizens, we’re attacking a link in the chain that makes the murders of Lorenzo and at least nine others possible, not to mention the dozens of others who have died in ICE detention. We’re not just demonstrating against some bank and its unethical practices, we’re protesting that institution’s participation in a nationwide campaign of terror.
Taste of Humanity: The Ongoing Community Response to the Tragic Death of Harbe Nagi
Our community continues to show what makes our 518 hometown so incredible, responding to the tragedy of Harbe Nagi’s death, on the one hand, with love, compassion and inclusivity and, on the other hand, by pushing back forcefully against those within our community who have responded to Harbe’s death with a message of ignorance, hate and intolerance.
On Saturday night, our community showed up at Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Company in droves — black, white, brown, Christian, Jew, Muslim and Atheist — to celebrate Harbe’s life, to hear the stories of our autistic neighbors and, most of all, to demonstrate that the Capital District is truly a place of solidarity, diversity and compassion. Event organizer Azam Khan pointedly called the gathering a “Taste of Humanity” and we were privileged to be present for it.
A few doors away from the packed house at Qamaria, the Taste of Italy restaurant run by Frank and Alyssa Cappello sat empty. The Cappellos claim to have lost tens of thousands of dollars in the weeks since Alyssa Cappello issued reprehensible and Islamophobic comments in the wake of Harbe’s death, turning their business into a community pariah and the site of consistent and sustained protests. Alyssa Cappello also told CBS6 that the planned grand opening of the Cappellos’ latest venture — Grazie Italian Kitchen in Loudon Plaza — has now been postponed. Unfortunately for the Cappellos, however, that won’t stop protestors from gathering outside the restaurant this coming Wednesday night to show that particular community who their new neighbors are. We’ve also filed a complaint against the Cappellos with the State Liquor Authority, alleging that they have amply demonstrated that they have “unsatisfactory character and/or fitness” under the rules of the Liquor Authority and requesting that the Liquor Authority suspend their license accordingly. Oh, and if you need a good laugh, get a load of the AI slop that the Cappellos have up on Grazie’s “Our Story” page; its an outstanding work of fiction, complete with AI-generated images of their imaginary staff.
The Latest Developments on Ranked Choice Voting in the City of Albany
If you missed the Albany Common Council meeting last Monday, you can view it here. What you’ll see in the public forum portion at the 2:00:00 mark — along with some vehement data center opposition discussed below — was one citizen after another calling upon the Common Council to enact the proposal advanced by RCV Albany for ranked-choice voting and single unified elections in the City of Albany. But the Common Council apparently has other ideas. Already on the agenda for the Council’s July 20 meeting is Local Law O of 2026, newly proposed by 8th Ward representative — and former Albany County Democratic Committee Chair — Jack Flynn. Flynn’s proposal is a true half loaf, ranked-choice voting while preserving party primaries, and therefore seems specifically geared to capitalize on the popular energy generated by RCV Albany while placating the preferences of the Albany Democratic Machine. We’ll have more to say about Flynn’s proposal in advance of the Council’s July 20 meeting, but our initial impression is that does not go far enough. A single unified election and elimination of closed party primaries is the only way to enfranchise the 25% of Albany’s registered voters who have no party affiliation and are therefore excluded from having a meaningful say in who gets elected to represent them. So, while we’re gratified that ranked-choice voting seems to have been embraced by even the Machine itself, ranked-choice voting could be rendered essentially meaningless in the City of Albany if a closed primary system continues to let only registered Democrats, and the Machine in particular, exclusively decide who gets to be the prohibitive favorite in the general election. This story is far from over.
Data Center Deliberations
The New Republic had a feature this past week about the grassroots nationwide movement against data centers, labeling it “a mass mobilization focused squarely on protecting American hometowns from oligarchic exploitation.” Well, as we alluded to above, the public comments to the Albany Common Council on July 6 were consistent with that movement and were unanimously opposed to the data center proposed for the former Kenwood convent site. In fact, unlike the RCV debate, it seems clear that, where the Kenwood data center proposal is concerned, the members of the Common Council are in lockstep with their constituents and are a hard no. To that end, the Council unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Responsible Data Center Development Act still awaiting Governor Hochul’s signature. We think the Council can do better, however, so later this week we’ll be revealing a proposed ordinance for the Council’s consideration which would impose a moratorium on data center development within the City limits.
The Week in Flock
In a massive development, Los Angeles, the second largest City in the United States with e second largest municipal police force, has discontinued its three-year agreement with Flock surveillance, effective this past Saturday. The LAPD — an agency not usually considered a bastion of civil liberties protections which has previously shared its Flock data with ICE — announced that the “contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras.” Huge news. Los Angeles is already the seventh — and by far the largest — jurisdiction to cancel, deactivate or reject Flock surveillance within its borders just this month, joining the University of Wisconsin - Madison and Green River, Wyoming; Westland, Michigan; Killingworth, Connecticut; Mount Vernon, Washington and Floyd County, Virginia on the ever-growing list of places that have said get the Flock out.
Meanwhile, the list of documented instances of law enforcement misuse of ALPR technology also continues to grow. Five police officers in Albany, Georgia were fired and then arrested last week and now face multiple criminal charges related to their accessing of ALPR data for non-law-enforcement purposes. It gets better: in the Florida Keys back in March, a sheriff’s deputy became enamored with an extra he encountered on the set of the Apple TV show, Bad Monkey. After she rebuffed the deputy’s cat calling and advances, the deputy accessed the extra’s data in official police databases and listed her license plates on an ALPR hotlist. When the hotlist pinged the woman’s location, the deputy literally chased her down on US1, illegally passing several vehicles and forcing another off the road. During his ensuing interview with investigators, the deputy admitted that he knew what he had done was wrong, but he just couldn’t resist the “shiny thing” that the extra constituted in his mind. While the woman elected to not press charges, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has; the deputy has since been fired and has entered into a two-year probationary agreement in hopes of resolving his criminal charges. To the north, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an Internal Affairs Detective who had previously investigated another officer for misusing Flock data — that officer was criminally convicted and now faces a prison sentence — has now been accused of doing the same thing himself and tracking two separate victims a total of 20 times. In the absence of a warrant requirement to access ALPR-collected data, it seems that law enforcement officers just cannot resist the siren song of Flock data, even when they know the potential disastrous consequences.
And sometimes, even the police’s ostensibly legal uses of ALPR data has nefarious motivations. Investigative journalist Ben Camacho has reporting in Inadvertent about 11 California police agencies that have tracked anti-ICE protestors at least 145 times using Flock surveillance databases.
The ACLU issued commentary recently about the “pattern of Flock regularly misleading or even lying about its business practices, safety record, commitment to privacy, and efforts to protect vulnerable populations. . . . Flock’s lies are not just directed at the general public; they often specifically target Flock’s potential government customers.”
The Bulwark has a story about the growing movement to drive Flock off of college campuses.
Don’t forget about the National Week of Action Against ALPRs, coming up between August 16 and August 22. We’re working with our friends in DeFlock 518 on programming for the whole week, but it’s sure to include an appearance before the Albany Common Council on August 17 as we look to open a new front in the war against Flock surveillance in the City of Albany.
Odds & Ends
Bad people sometimes advance good policy proposals and, to prove this point, Graham Platner is a complete piece of shit. Mainer Rebecca Traister has an excellent piece in New York Magazine where she points out that it will likely be women who have to pick up the pieces from the disaster Platner has wrought: “It seems quite possible that the candidate chosen to replace Platner will be a woman. A woman who will be asked, as Kamala Harris was two years ago, to mount a terribly difficult campaign in a terribly short amount of time — knowing that no story about her will ever be told just about her but rather about her in relation to the men who got us into this mess in the first place.” There is plenty of blame to spread around in the Platner debacle, but no one seems more deserving than the man who recruited him, Toys-R-Us heir and political strategist Daniel Moraff. If you think that what’s happened over the last week in Maine is going to stem the current tide of anti-establishment fervor in the Democratic Party, however, Brian Beutler offers a deep-dive into how the Democratic Party establishment has itself stoked this fury by alienating its own voters for decades.
Trump called it a “big yawn” and refused to put his signature on it, but the 21st Century Road to Housing Act became law this past Friday. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called it “the biggest housing legislation in more than 30 years” and you can find a fact sheet about the legislation here.
Congressman Ro Khanna was detained at gunpoint by Israeli settlers carrying American-made rifles in the occupied West Bank.
As Cyclospora causes an outbreak of explosive diarrhea across the Country, there’s word that RFK Jr.’s CDC stopped surveilling the parasite last year.
A little good news. We’ve long been fans of the work of Albany Waterway Inc., the grassroots group trying to reconnect downtown to its Hudson River past with some pretty inspirational ideas on how to get it done. One aspect of Albany Waterway’s work is the possibility of excavating the origin point of the Erie Canal, that being Lock One in the shadow of Central Warehouse. This week, Albany Waterway announced that, in August 2026, there will be excavation of a green area adjacent to Water Street to try and uncover aspects of the Lock. The excavation will be documented and filmed, and a fence will surround the dig which will feature illustrations to educate the public about this site.
Finally, we have a busy week ahead, including our Monthly Member Meeting at 6 o’clock tonight which we have switched to Zoom. In addition to that and the things discussed above and listed below, we encourage everyone to sign up for Indivisible’s upcoming Hands Off Our Vote national Kick-Off Call on the night of July 30.
