ICE agent assaults woman who asked if he’s a good Christian
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers forcibly detained a father and his two children in southwest Colorado on Monday while they were on their way to middle school, sparking a mass protest outside the agency’s Durango field office in an effort to get the kids released back to their mom.
Video from the protest outside the facility shows masked and unidentified federal officers tear-gassing protesters on Tuesday afternoon as they stood in the street and attempted to prevent transport vans from entering the facility.
Earlier in the day, an ICE agent threw a woman to the ground in a shocking moment captured by bystanders amid the otherwise peaceful protest.
The victim, 57-year-old Franci Stagi, told HuffPost the agent snapped when she asked him “what would Jesus do” and if he was “a good Christian.”
Video shows he responded by snatching her phone from her hands and then violently assaulting her when she attempted to retrieve it, grabbing her by the hair and putting her in a chokehold before ultimately throwing her down an embankment on the opposite side of the street.
Stagi acknowledged she brushed his shoulder while trying to grab her phone back but said he should never have grabbed her phone in the first place. More shocking to her is how these agents have been emboldened to act with absolute impunity.
“People were like, ‘You gotta press charges,’ and I’m like, ‘Against who?’”
“I don’t know who he was. He didn’t have a badge. He wouldn’t give us a name. He wouldn’t talk to us. There’s no recourse,” she said. [Continue reading…]