ICE agents pepper-sprayed two Santa Clara County public defender attorneys and immigrant-rights activists on Friday morning as they recorded agents tackling and detaining a man just outside the Hall of Justice in San Jose, The Mercury News reported.
According to the Public Defender's Office and other witnesses cited by the paper, a Latino man was walking along the south sidewalk on West Hedding Street around 11:30 a.m. when agents approached him and a short foot chase headed north toward Guadalupe Parkway. About five agents caught up to the man and tackled him west of the courthouse. Two public defender attorneys and members of Silicon Valley De-Bug, who were already nearby to warn people about a surge in ICE activity around courthouses and the adjoining Main Jail, began recording on their phones.
The man could be heard calling out in Spanish for someone to contact his wife, witnesses said, as people asked the agents to be less violent. Assistant Public Defender Miguel Rodriguez told the Mercury News that after the man was handcuffed, agents pushed to clear space and walked through the group of observers. An agent got into a verbal exchange with someone, Rodriguez said, and another agent then sprayed into the crowd. The two attorneys, one of them directly, and at least two De-Bug members were hit. One attorney and one activist needed treatment at local hospitals. Agents then took the handcuffed man across the street to a waiting vehicle, the paper reported.
San Jose police were called, took statements, and said they generally confirmed the witness accounts. "ICE agents were conducting an enforcement action when an interaction occurred with individuals observing and recording the incident. During the interaction, ICE agents reportedly deployed pepper spray, resulting in several individuals reporting exposure," police said in a statement quoted by the Mercury News. Officers said they were documenting the incident, identifying witnesses, and gathering evidence, and that the circumstances remained under investigation. ICE did not immediately respond to the newspaper's inquiry Friday.
Raj Jayadev, director of Silicon Valley De-Bug, said, "ICE attacked and assaulted community members in daylight in open public with weapons." Chief Public Defender Damon Silver said he was "saddened, though unfortunately not surprised," and that the incident "raises serious concerns about the safety of attorneys, court staff, litigants, and community members who access our courts." "Our attorney did not deserve to be pepper sprayed and was merely observing as ICE violently detained an individual who was leaving court," Silver said.
The clash came in a week when the county Rapid Response Network reported ICE agents at the Main Jail on Tuesday and Thursday, and a detainment of a Latino man as he was released from Elmwood on Thursday, the Mercury News reported. County officials had earlier this month restricted access at Elmwood after reports of a visible ICE presence, including a week in which a man was hospitalized after being tased and another encounter left a volunteer and three ICE agents treated at a hospital. Jayadev said county leaders "have to take some action for the safety of this community."