Patti Singer

@PattiSingerRoc

Protesters upset after Guatemalan sisters with young children were detained for several hours.

A traffic stop in Geneseo Thursday evening involving two women and six children led to a protest at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Irondequoit, where a state trooper was struck by an object and a Rochester man arrested.

Two individuals — a woman and her 12-year-old brother — were sent to immigration officials in Buffalo. One other woman was already in the immigration system. Four of the other children are U.S. citizens. One is Guatemalan.

Philipp Birklbauer, 29, was charged with five counts, including criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest, for his alleged actions during a protest overnight at the station, 171 Pattonwood Drive. He was arraigned Friday morning in Irondequoit Town Court and remanded to Monroe County Jail on $5,000 bail or $10,000 bond.

State Police reported there were about 75 protesters at the Border Patrol station.

According to court documents, Irondequoit police and New York State Police allege that Birklbauer threw a cylindrical object that struck Trooper Thomas J. Loewke on the side of his head, just missing his eye.

A rally to draw attention to the detainment of farmworkers in Orleans and Livingston counties was held Friday afternoon outside the Kenneth B. Keating Federal Building, 100 State St. in Rochester. The entrance of the building was barricaded. About 200 people gathered peacefully, calling for equality and togetherness.

"In Episcopal faith we question things, we question religion," said the Rev. Ruth Ferguson from Christ Church on East Avenue in Rochester who was representing the faith community. "We ask ourselves, 'Is this the religion I need to practice?' A test of that is, 'Does it produce and promote the well-being, spiritually and materially of other people?' That's a good question to ask if you want to be a law-abiding citizen. I do, but are these laws producing and promoting justice?"

The crowd responded, "No."

Traffic stop in Geneseo

The protest at the Border Patrol station was the second in response to events that began about 6:15 p.m. Thursday. A Geneseo police officer stopped a vehicle that allegedly was speeding on South Street (Route 20A) in the village and needed help identifying the two adults who were from Guatemala and six children.

Neither of the adults spoke English, and neither was a licensed driver, said Geneseo Police Chief Eric Osganian. The driver did have a Guatemala passport, according to the chief. Border Patrol later reported that she did not have a visa to be in the United States. The children ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years old.

Osganian wrote in an email that the officer called Border Patrol to confirm the passport and get help identifying the driver. "We are not experts in these types of documents, as Border Patrol is," he wrote. "Border Patrol has been our resource in assisting us with this. The call was not made as an immigration purpose, solely for identification purposes."

Osganian said a crowd gathered to protest the call to Border Patrol, and that started to play out on social media as bystanders recorded the event.

Osganian said the crowd created a dangerous situation. "We don't want people on the side of the road at night," he wrote.

"I am very supportive of the way it was handled," said village Mayor Richard Hatheway. "I think that some people are looking at it as though there is a witch hunt going on in Geneseo. That is not the case at all. It must be remembered, the reason the car was stopped in the first place was because they were exceeding the speed limit."

Hatheway said that a few weeks ago he asked for data on the number of traffic stops for any sort of infraction that turned out to involve someone in the country illegally. "Last year there was one," he said. "We might have had at one point about 10 years ago as many as four. But this is a highly unusual incident to occur."

Hatheway said the incident has stirred emotions in the village.

"I don't think that everybody realizes the responsibility that the police department has, that law enforcement has, partly because of what's happening on the national level," he said. "It gets drilled down to the very local scale. ... As soon as you mention Border Patrol or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) , these images of goons come up and that's just not the case. The village police department is exceptionally sympathetic."

►MORE: Full statement from Geneseo Police Chief Eric Osganian

Role of Border Patrol

Border Patrol has access to databases that local police may not, and Jones said they get requests to help with identifications.

Border Patrol initially responded to the Geneseo request by sending a pickup truck. The decision then was made to bring the individuals to Rochester to continue the identification process, according to agent Corey Jones of the public affairs office in the Buffalo sector headquarters. He said the group was transported in a passenger van, with child seats for the young ones. Once in Rochester, he said the children were fed and given toys.

Names of the individuals have yet to released by ICE or Border Patrol, but Jones did explain some of the family relationship and their status.

Jones said on Friday that one woman and her 12-year-old brother were in the country illegally. They were transported to immigration officials in Buffalo and were scheduled to be released Friday.

Jones said that the woman requested that her children, who are U.S. citizens ranging from 2 months to 4 years old, be released to her sister.

In addition, her 4-year-old Guatemalan daughter was released to the woman. Jones said the child's status will be determined by ICE, but she will not be separated from her mother, Jones said.

Bystander account

Evan Goldstein, a senior at SUNY Geneseo, was making dinner in his campus apartment when two other friends came by and told them a passerby had come upon the traffic stop near the SUNY Geneseo campus. According to what Goldstein was told, the passerby saw the driver was upset and she asked the officer about the situation. When the officer told her he was calling Border Patrol, the passerby flagged down his two friends and asked them if some students could help.

​Goldstein said he contacted the Worker Justice Center of New York, and then word began to spread through social media.

Goldstein said about 100 students showed up, with some live-streaming the event on Facebook. Some also went to the Border Patrol station.

Goldstein said the protest in Geneseo also attracted professors and townspeople. He said it was orderly, but people were condemning the officer and the Border Patrol agents.

"There is broad sympathy for the migrant population in Geneseo," Goldstein said. "There is not much broad sympathy for the police in Geneseo."

Goldstein said he did not know what pressures were on the officer when he called Border Patrol, but he said the vulnerable populations feel they are targets of police.

Hatheway, the mayor, said that if police officers don't make routine stops and something bad happens down the road, they are derelict in their duties. "If you get a hold of a couple of women and a bunch of kids, you look like real monsters. Nobody knew that when the car got pulled over."

In Irondequoit, the protesters were met by Border Patrol personnel, Irondequoit police and state troopers.

They blocked the main driveway out of the station a few times by sitting in the road.

They chanted, "Let them go. Let them go." They called law enforcement officials Nazis and fascists and questioned why they wanted to be officers. Most of the officers did not respond. Yellow crime scene tape and a few feet separated the two sides for most of the night.

Goldstein described the Irondquoit protest at times as a candlelight vigil. He said he did not see the incident where the trooper reported being struck.

Jones, for the Border Patrol, said he can understand why the public could get upset, but he said that agents need to make sure they have all the facts before releasing information. Jones said he received a call from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, apologizing for some of the actions outside the station.

PSINGER@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by staff writer Todd Clausen and Will Cleveland.