Masked ICE Agents Assault News Photographers in New York City Courthouse, One is Seriously Injured

ICE agents assaulted amNewYork’s own Dean Moses, and allegedly attacked another journalist, on Tuesday morning as they were documenting the ongoing arrests of individuals attending immigration court proceedings at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan.

Masked officials grabbed Moses, the police bureau chief of amNewYork, as he went to photograph them apprehending an immigrant inside a public elevator at around 10:15 a.m.

…ICE agents paced the 12th-floor hallway on Tuesday morning and briefly followed a woman after she exited a courtroom. They suddenly stopped pursuing her and allowed the woman to head toward an elevator bank, where she boarded an arriving lift.

“A couple of seconds after she goes into the elevator, two ICE agents go in after her,” Moses said. “They never identified themselves, they didn’t ask for her papers or her ID.” 

Moses said he then went into the public elevator to document the apparent arrest in progress when the ICE agents suddenly turned their attention to him.

“I walked into the elevator behind them, and they started screaming at me, ‘Get the f–k out,” he said. “Then they pushed me, grabbed me by my arms, and started pulling me out of the elevator. I tried to hold on, but I got shoved out.”

…During the episode, Moses said, a second photojournalist outside the elevator — Olga Fedorova, a freelancer working for the Associated Press — was shoved to the floor by another ICE agent.

In the process, another photojournalist directly behind Fedorova fell to the floor hard.

The journalist, identified as L. Vural Elibol of the Anadolu Agency, had hit his head on the back of the floor near the elevator bank, and appeared seriously injured.

“People immediately started screaming because he was seriously injured,” Moses said of the chaotic scene. “He was semiconscious, but he didn’t move from the position for 35 to 40 minutes.”