A 72-year-old woman who was pepper-sprayed at close range by a masked ICE agent while filming an immigration operation in New York City has filed a federal tort claim and is considering becoming the first person to sue an individual ICE officer under a new state law.
Civil rights attorney John Burris filed claims against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on behalf of Linda Wolff, who says her constitutional rights were violated during the July 30 encounter in Manhattan's Inwood neighborhood.
Burris is also considering a lawsuit under New York's recently enacted Bivens Act, which allows individuals to seek damages in state court from federal officers accused of violating their constitutional rights, as Hell Gate reports. Doing so would require identifying the masked agent, something Burris said his team hopes to accomplish using videos and the officer's visible tattoos.
Wolff said she went to Inwood after receiving an alert about ICE activity and began recording agents near a vehicle that was being towed after getting a flat tire. Video, shared by photojournalist Wali Khan and allegedly provided by Wolff herself, shows her arguing with the tow-truck driver before an ICE agent approaches and sprays her in the face.
Wolff said she later experienced health effects from the spray. "The doctor said that I have acute laryngitis and I need to get scoped because it's too low for him to see," she told ABC7. After NYPD officers arrived, Wolff confronted the ICE agent about spraying her. "You just maced me," she said in recorded video. "I'm gonna do it again," the agent responded. When Wolff asked, "In front of the cops?" he replied, "Yep."
Video also shows NYPD officers asking the agent for identification. "We don't have to," he responded before leaving.
ICE justified the action through a statement to Hell Gate, saying its officers had been surrounded by an "unruly, combative, and verbally assaultive crowd" and used appropriate measures. In a separate statement to NBC News, the agency said officers "used the minimum amount of force necessary."
"It's egregious to me because she wasn't physically interfering with the ICE officers," Burris told Hell Gate, adding that his firm is handling similar excessive-force cases involving ICE elsewhere in the country.
