A New York City baseball coach was willing to put his life on the line to protect his young players in the face of danger. When ICE agents approached a group of his kids during practice, Youman Wilder, the founder of Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy, stepped up in a major way.
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In an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline White House,” Wilder said he instructed his kids not to respond to armed agents who approached them at a park on New York City’s Upper West Side.
“I heard them saying, ‘Where are you from? Where are your parents from?’ And I just stepped in and said, ‘This is very inappropriate to ask these kids anything,’” he told host Nicolle Wallace. “I’m just going to have them implement their Fifth Amendment right and not say anything to you.’”
The coach said he was disappointed that bystanders in the area didn’t do anything to protect the children during their confrontation with ICE agents, calling them “cowards.” But for him, doing nothing was not an option. He told CNN, “I just said to myself, ‘I’m willing to die to make sure you get home.’”
He added, “The only thing I had that day was my Uncle Pete, who’s my bishop, my mother in my ear, the Constitution and prayer.”
Wilder’s youth baseball program has been a vital resource in the community for over 20 years, nurturing the love and talent for the sport in Black and brown kids. In addition to helping nearly 400 kids get into college, 45 of his players have been picked up by Major League Baseball teams. But since the incident, Wilder says attendance at his practice has dropped dramatically as the children and their families are afraid they’ll be targeted again.
“We usually carry, during the summer, between 11 and 15 kids, and we’re having one kid show up at practice right now,” he said.
Linda Rosenthal, New York Assembly member who represents the Upper West Side, mentioned the ICE agents descending upon the kids in a newsletter.
“The only thing that stood between those kids in Riverside Park and a Florida detention center buried deep in the Everglades was a brave coach who knew the law,” Rosenthal wrote, first reported by ILovetheUpperWestSide. “Each one of us has the power to make a difference right in our own backyards.”
As of this post, ICE is denying Coach Wilder’s allegations that his players were targeted, saying that they were not in the area.
“These allegations are false. ICE has not conducted any recent enforcement activity in the vicinity of Riverside Park,” an ICE spokesperson told PEOPLE.
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