ICE Agents Violently Cuff, Arrest WGN Employee They Claim Assaulted Them

Maybe there’s a reason the people of Chicago have been rebelling against ICE agents and other feds who have been deployed into their neighborhoods, supposedly, to arrest violent, undocumented criminals.

Perhaps Chicagoans simply don’t believe the Trump administration is trying to make their streets safer by ridding them of dangerous migrants, because these agents keep snatching up day laborers and U.S. citizens whom they think are “illegals.” It could also be that folks are having a difficult time believing that it’s ICE that is “under siege” when what we see is agents detaining people for no discernible reason, deploying tear gas near schools and residential areas, beating up on protesters, bystanders, and media personnel, and, occasionally, shooting people.

Also, why should we believe a word that comes out of a Border Patrol cop’s mouth when they keep lying about what led to so many of these incidents?

According to the Guardian, last week, Debbie Brockman, a U.S. citizen and employee at Chicago’s WGN TV station, was temporarily detained during an ICE operation in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. Video footage of the arrest that has since gone viral on social media shows Brockman being forced to the ground by two agents, whom she can be heard identifying herself to before telling them where she works. It also appears that, for whatever reason, her pants were pulled down.

In one video, a person off-camera can be heard asking the masked agents, “Do you guys want to share your names too, or you just gonna cover your face?”

Brockman was reportedly handcuffed and put in a van, but then she was released without charges, which is odd, considering ICE agents accused her of throwing “objects at Border Patrol’s car” before she was “placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer,” according to a DHS official.

Yeah, because — you know — a person being released without charges after attacking an officer is totally a thing that happens.

(To be fair, you can do it at the Capitol to stop Democratic votes from being certified, and the current president will issue you a pardon and contemplate paying you reparations.)

Brockman’s attorneys denied their client did anything she was accused of, which, again, is believable because it’s the kind of thing people typically go to jail for.

From the Guardian:

In a news release issued by attorneys representing Brockman on Tuesday, which was sent to the Guardian as well as several Chicago news outlets, her lawyers disputed the government’s account. They said they “adamantly deny any allegation that she assaulted anyone” and that “Brockman was the one who was violently assaulted by federal agents on her way to work” on 10 October.

Her lawyers say that at the time of the arrest, Brockman was “not acting in any professional capacity as an employee for WGN” but that she was just “walking to the bus stop as part of her morning commute when she was attacked by Border Patrol agents.

“Brockman, who is a US Citizen born in this country, was violently detained on Foster Avenue,” the statement continues. “As this occurred, individuals on the street began recording the incident and asked Ms Brockman her name.”

The statement says that she told the bystanders her name and that she worked at WGN, in the hopes that “someone would notify her employer so coworkers would know that she would not be arriving at work that day”, her attorneys said.

According to her lawyers, Brockman was held in federal custody for about seven hours before being released.

“She has not been charged with any crimes and she intends to pursue all legal avenues available to her to vindicate her rights and hold the federal authorities accountable for their actions,” the statement adds.

One of Brockman’s lawyers, Brad Thomson, probably said it best:

“If armed, masked, federal agents are snatching U.S. citizens off the street as they walk to work and throwing them in unmarked vehicles, you can only imagine what these agents must be willing to do to our immigrant neighbors and people who dare to speak out against them.”

Only we don’t need to imagine it, because we’ve seen it on camera.

Here’s a video we reported on earlier this month that shows federal immigration agents confronting and attempting to detain a man in the West Lawn neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Here’s what I wrote about that incident at the time:

The man in question refused to go with the men willingly, which, normally, would result in a resisting arrest charge in addition to whatever the civilian was being arrested for in the first place. However, in this case, the scene ended with the men who appeared to be officers appearing to give up on arresting the man altogether and leaving the man alone after being confronted by angry bystanders.

Bootlickers, of course, claimed it was an example of ICE being harassed just for doing their jobs, but those at the scene, including the man who recorded the video, said it was an example of the neighborhood stepping in to defend a human being from the Trump administration’s Gestapo.

According to CBS News Chicago, a DHS spokesperson declined to explain why agents would simply leave the scene without taking the man into custody, which is a good question to ask, because, again, it just wouldn’t happen if the agents had a legitimate reason to arrest the man in the first place.

As scary as it is to be confronted, roughed up, and arrested by ICE agents — who are often doing so without a proper warrant or probable cause — it becomes even more alarming once you realize not all people who are wrongfully arrested are simply released.

Earlier this month, Mario Guevara, an award-winning, Spanish-language journalist, was deported to El Salvador, despite being in the U.S. legally, after he was arrested in June for livestreaming an anti-Trump “No Kings” protest near Atlanta. Guevara, who had been in the U.S. for more than two decades and has a 21-year-old son who lives here, was arrested without cause and deported without reason, and there was nothing he could do about it.

So, basically, what happened to Brockman was a best-case scenario, and, as her attorney said, she was “taken to the ground, battered, handcuffed, and her pants were pulled down, exposing her bare buttocks.”

If one is such a delusional MAGA cultist that they see what’s going on in Chicago and other cities as a problem, they must want to live in a police state.

SEE ALSO:

Federal Judge Places Restrictions On ICE Arrests In Chicago

The People Of Chicago Are Pushing Back Against ICE

Chicago Residents Continue To Fight Back Against ICE Agents

Feds Rappel From Black Hawk In Chicago ICE Raid

Federal Judge Blocks National Guard Deployment To Chicago

National Guard Arrives In Chicago As Trump Threatens Insurrection Act

Witness Accounts Of Chicago ICE Shooting Contradict DHS