Homeland Security’s Framing of ICE Protest Violence Often Falls Apart Following Later Scrutiny, Video Evidence

President Trump and high ranking members of his administration rushed to justify the Wednesday shooting of a Minneapolis mother of three by an ICE agent, a pattern of framing events in a way that video evidence does not always support.Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post that a woman — later identified as Renee Nicole Good, 37 — “viciously ran over the ICE officer.”Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions before she was fatally shot as “domestic terrorism.” Ms. Noem claimed that ICE agents were trying to push out their vehicle that had been trapped in the snow and she attacked them. Video of the incident does not back up Ms. Noem’s claims.The Trump administration has a history of exaggerating incidents to defend the actions of federal agents or accuse protesters of violence that did not take place. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered federal prosecutors to charge those accused of assaulting law enforcement with “the highest provable offense available.”Many of those cases, however, were later dropped in the face of later evidence refuting those claims. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment about its track record.An Associated Press investigation found that of 100 people initially charged with felony assaults on federal agents between May and December of last year, 55 had their charges dismissed or reduced to misdemeanors.In one case, a 70-year old Air Force veteran was charged with felony assault of a federal officer after allegedly swinging his arms and making contact with the officer in a September incident outside a suburban Chicago ICE facility. The charge against Dana Briggs was later downgraded to a misdemeanor, however, and prosecutors eventually dropped charges altogether in November after video of the incident showed Mr. Briggs falling to the concrete and federal agents swarming him after a border patrol agent pushed him.Four other protesters were arrested the same day as Mr. Briggs. A grand jury refused to indict two of them. ICE had described a couple who were arrested outside the facility as “armed rioters,” but it was later discovered that the husband and wife were licensed to carry the guns federal authorities found on them. A third person, Hubert Mazur, was accused of forcibly resisting, opposing, impeding, and interfering with a federal officer. Prosecutors dropped charges after body camera footage refuted the initial accusations.A woman who was protesting the administration’s law enforcement crackdown in Washington, D.C. in June was jailed on felony assault charges. Three grand juries refused to indict Sidney Lori Reid, so federal prosecutors tried her on a misdemeanor. ICE posted Ms. Reid’s mugshot on Facebook with the caption, “Assault an officer or agent — get arrested. It’s not rocket science.” Law enforcement body camera video, however, showed Ms. Reid had not struck an officer and had, herself, been shoved. A jury quickly found her not guilty.A month earlier, Homeland Security officials made untrue statements about the actions of several protesters arrested during demonstrations in the Los Angeles area. The Guardian reported that prosecutors had to dismiss felony charges against at least eight people because of inaccurate reports by law enforcement.Department of Homeland Security agents allegedly made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video. In one case, an agent accused a protester of shoving an officer. Video footage from the scene showed that the officer had actually pushed the protester.Last month, prosecutors dismissed a felony assault charge against a woman accused of assaulting a federal officer during an October protest at Portland, Oregon. Lucy Shepherd was accused of “striking” the officer, but video she recorded on her phone showed that her arm had merely brushed against the officer’s arm. The United States Attorney’s Office asked a judge to dismiss the charge “in the best interests of justice.”In a May incident at a Newark ICE facility, the administration exaggerated what took place when three members of Congress got into the facility. “Today, as a bus of detainees was entering the security gate of Delaney Hall Detention Center, a group of protestors, including two members of US Congress, stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility,” the Department of Homeland Security claimed in an X post.Security footage that emerged later, however, showed that the three members of Congress simply followed a car into the facility and they stopped to talk to personnel on the other side of the gate.The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, and members of his team, had been allowed into that facility. Mr. Baraka walked back onto the public side of the jail gate but the Homeland Security special agent in charge at the facility decided to arrest Mr. Baraka for trespassing at an ICE detention center.A scuffle broke out during his arrest. An assault case was filed against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver days later for allegedly assaulting a federal officer. President Donald Trump praised the charges against Ms. McIver. “The days of that crap are over,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the time. Her case is still pending.

Homeland Security’s Framing of ICE Protest Violence Often Falls Apart Following Later Scrutiny, Video Evidence

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