A video editor and producer for Chicago’s WGN television station was arrested by masked federal agents on Friday morning, and later released, during an Ice raid on the city’s North Side, as shown in videos shared widely on social media.
Videos show Debbie Brockman being violently forced to the ground by two agents before she is handcuffed and put in a van. A local resident filming the incident asks her name while she is face-down on the street being handcuffed.
“Debbie Brockman,” she replies. “I work for WGN. Please let them know.”
In another video, onlookers shout at the agents and call them “fascists”, telling them to “get out of our neighborhood, get out of our city”. The agents get in the van and scrape the side of another car, whose driver is still inside, as they speed off, tearing off part of its bumper.
A homeland security official said Brockman stood accused of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer by throwing objects at a vehicle.
The incident took place in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood, as immigration agents – at the behest of Trump officials – have been scouring the city for people to deport.
The ramped-up immigration enforcement in Chicago has been met with protests.
Local resident Nancy Molden told the Chicago Sun-Times that “it was absolutely horrifying” to see Brockman’s arrest in person.
“That was the most frightening thing I have seen in Chicago, living here 20-odd years,” Molden said.
Witnesses told local media the agents were targeting a small group of landscapers, though that was not immediately confirmed. A second person, a man, also appeared to have been detained.
In one video, the man can be seen handcuffed in the back of the vehicle while Brockman is being arrested. The person filming asks him in Spanish for his name.
Tricia McLaughlin of the homeland security department said: “US border patrol was conducting immigration enforcement operations and when several violent agitators used their vehicles to block in agents in an effort to impede and assault federal officers.
“In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers used their service vehicle to strike a suspect’s vehicle and create an opening. As agents were driving, Deborah Brockman, a US citizen, threw objects at border patrol’s car, and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”
WGN said that the border patrol released the employee from federal custody as of 3pm on Friday, and no charges have been filed in her case. The network is still in the process of searching for and obtaining video showing the moment leading up to the employee’s detainment.
Brockman’s arrest came days after prosecutors were forced to drop charges against anti-Ice protesters accused of assaulting federal agents while carrying weapons outside a Chicago immigration detention facility – with the move coming after grand jurors refused to hand down an indictment in the case.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Chicago issued a temporary restraining order blocking federal agents from using certain forceful tactics to suppress protests or to impede journalists from covering those protests.
The order restricts federal officials from arresting, threatening to arrest or deploying physical force against journalists unless the authorities have established probable cause to believe the journalists have committed a crime.
