A federal immigration agent is facing charges in Colorado for an incident captured on film that showed the masked officer grabbing a female protester by the hair, placing her in a chokehold and shoving her to the ground.
Sean Murray, a district attorney, announced on Tuesday he had decided to charge Nicholas Rice, a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, with assault in the third degree and criminal mischief.
The development comes nearly six months after the incident in the college town of Durango, which took place amid protests over the detention of a family of Columbian asylum seekers. Agents had taken a man and his two children into custody while they were on the way to school in the morning.
Francis Stagi, a 57-year-old retired hypnotist, was among those who had gathered outside an ICE facility in the city to protest the agency’s operations in the area. She was filming Rice as he moved along the building’s entryway, when he hit her hand with force, she told the Associated Press last fall. She lost her phone in the process, with the agent either taking it or causing it to fall to the ground.
The retiree said when she touched the agent’s shoulder to get his attention, he grabbed her by the hair and put her in a chokehold. Rice allegedly then carried her across the street and threw her down an embankment, she said. Multiple videos captured the incident.
The US Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US CBP has said the officer was under investigation.
Stagi told the New York Times that she was glad Rice had been charged, although she felt he should have faced more severe charges.
“I pretty much tried to hide after the assault,” she told the newspaper about the longterm effects of the encounter. “I have become more paranoid. I try to keep it to myself, but my eyes are always scanning the area.”
The Colorado Bureau of Investigations launched its own investigation into the incident at the request of the local police department.
The news is a rare case of a federal immigration agent under the Trump administration being charged for alleged misconduct. Last week, officials in Minnesota charged an ICE agent with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car while driving on a highway.
Mary Moriarty, Hennepin county attorney, said she believed the Minnesota case was the first criminal case brought against a federal immigration officer involved in the administration’s immigration crackdown.
Rice has been summoned to appear in court on 27 May.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
