As public anger in Worcester boils over the controversial arrests of a woman and her teen daughter last week, City Hall will close early on Tuesday and a City Council meeting will be held on Zoom.
The decision was made “Due [to] public safety concerns, out of an abundance of caution,” Tom Matthews, Worcester city spokesperson, said in a statement.
Matthews said the city council meeting and budget hearing, both scheduled for Tuesday evening, will be held virtually, instead of in person as originally scheduled.
Matthews didn’t immediately respond to questions about the “public safety concerns” or why City Hall was closing on Monday night.
The decision comes as organizers planned to protest the council meeting after last week’s chaotic arrests by federal immigration officials and Worcester police of a woman and her 16-year-old daughter.
Multiple city councilors also received bomb threats after the arrests, according to a councilor with firsthand knowledge and a Globe reporter’s review of the emailed threat.
Last Thursday, hundreds of people protested and some local elected officials accused police of aiding ICE agents to the detriment of residents.
In a news release, the city’s police department said it received conflicting reports about the scene on Thursday. One report indicated a crowd of about 25 people had surrounded an ICE agent. Another said federal immigration agents refused to display a warrant to the crowd.
In the end, a federal immigration agent detained one woman and took her away in an SUV while city police officers arrested her daughter, 16, and another woman who tried to intervene.
In a text, Worcester activist Josh Croke said it was an “incredibly upsetting” yet “unsurprising response” from the city to close City Hall.
“We are at a critical moment in our local communities where we can continue to grow the power of our collective voice,” Croke said. “In the face of tactics that seek to silence and separate us, I will be standing out with my community in front of city hall tomorrow.”
The protest scheduled for Tuesday, organized by the group Worcester Indivisible, asked attendees to “bring your signs, pots and pans, drums and shakers and be ready to chant.”
“Our purpose is not to disrupt the meeting, but to make our voices heard,” organizers wrote in a Facebook post. “And to have a good time together in common cause. (Please don’t play drums in City Hall ).”
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.