Steven Davis’ first time volunteering to observe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s local operations ended with him recording a military-clad agent wearing a black face mask breaking an older Latino man’s truck window during an arrest. The man had just left a neighborhood grocery store on Tucson’s south side.
A grassroots network released the video of ICE agents pulling the man from his vehicle on Sunday, Jan. 18. Davis is a new member of the Tucson Rapid Response Network. He recorded the arrest, and said he began filming hoping his presence might temper how agents treated the driver.
“When you know that you’re being observed then I think people generally tend to be on their best behavior,” he said. The network was created to have people observe ICE arrests for accountability and documentation purposes.
As immigration enforcement activity has escalated under the Trump administration in cities like L.A., Chicago, Minneapolis and across the country, the footage shows some of the same aggressive tactics being used by ICE officers in local communities.
Nearly 20 seconds into the recording, the video shows one of the ICE officers speaking to the driver. But seconds later, the same officer smashes the driver’s side window, knocking out the shattered glass with his right arm. Another officer then opens the passenger side door and steps inside to unlock the driver’s side door.
Over the next minute, the man steps out from behind the wheel and one of at least five ICE officers present at the scene places him in handcuffs. The officer then leads him to an unmarked vehicle.
ICE has not responded to questions from Arizona Luminaria about the arrest.
The interaction also shows the growing role played by networks of observers that have emerged nationwide to provide informal oversight of ICE operations, particularly following fears of violence after an ICE agent in Minneapolis fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly argued tactics agents use are in line with necessary law enforcement operations and that the Minneapolis agent acted in self-defense.
Davis told Arizona Luminaria he had been watching ICE agents, clad in green vests with the words “Police ICE” and donning face coverings that hide their identities, at the parking lot of El Super. The supermarket, which caters mostly to Latino shoppers, is located on Sixth Avenue south of Interstate 10, in Tucson’s majority Latino south side neighborhood.
Davis said he followed an unmarked ICE vehicle as it drove to a gas station across the street from El Super, following a black Ford F150. Two unmarked vehicles parked behind the truck, five agents stepped out and surrounded it.
He had just taken a training to observe immigration arrests the week prior, and took out his phone and began recording.
“There was also the hope in my mind that by being there to witness and record that I could help them from treating the person they were kidnapping as harshly as we’ve seen it happen elsewhere.”
He could hear the officer speaking to the driver in Spanish before smashing the window, though Davis added that he couldn’t understand what the officer was saying. But he was troubled that the officer decided to smash the window because he said the driver had remained calm, even while he was being arrested.
“I don’t really know why they broke the glass. As you saw from the video the passenger side was unlocked. So they had no trouble getting in on the passenger side,” he said.
As the video concludes, Davis walked up to the smashed window. Past the shattered glass, he recorded several grocery bags on the passenger seat. He stopped recording as the unmarked vehicles drove off, leaving the truck with the smashed window unlocked in the gas station parking lot.
When Davis returned to the area several hours later, he saw a tow truck loading the Ford F150.
ICE smashing windows is not a new occurrence. A ProPublica investigation found nearly 50 documented instances of ICE agents breaking vehicle windows in the first six months of the Trump administration, compared to only eight in the previous decade.
The investigation found that use-of-force experts and former ICE insiders said “there is no known policy change greenlighting agents’ smashing of windows.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which ICE is under, has Use of Force policies that require law enforcement officers to “employ tactics and techniques that effectively bring an incident under control while promoting the safety of LEOs and the public, and that minimize the risk of unintended injury or serious property damage.”
Maria Carrasco, who answers the rapid response line for Derechos Humans, said this arrest marks part of an escalation she has seen over the past weeks.
“The last 10 days have been awful. The phone rings off the hook,” Carrasco said. “We started going crazy with the phone calls.”
While she said she hears of many reports of violent arrests, including people alleging that ICE beat them up, this is the first time an observer has shared the footage. Carrasco is concerned that the uptick in calls indicates a larger ICE presence in the area.
“We noticed there’s more calls and that’s why we’re thinking that there’s more new agents here, just all over the city,” she said.
Carrasco said that resistance to the agency has also risen. She said 80 people attended a recent rapid response team training to be volunteers for the network in which people observe ICE arrests and document their activity.
“We want to have a video or pictures of the incident because we believe that sooner or later we’re going to be able to take them to court,” she said.
A growing number of local communities are pushing back and seeking ways to hold immigration officers to account. California passed a law that limits officers’ ability to assert qualified immunity for their actions if they choose to cover their faces. The Trump administration has sued to block the measure.
Less than two months ago, federal law enforcement agents pepper sprayed Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva during a protest of an immigration raid at a taco restaurant on Tucson’s west side in a historic Latino neighborhood. Several videos of the incident taken by journalists, protesters and Grijalva herself were shared on social media.
Grijalva released a statement following the incident in which she called out ICE’s “abusive tactics” and said “communities across the country are being terrorized by a lawless agency.”
Grijalva also joined U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, and Representatives Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari in sending a letter to congressional leaders and committees calling for a “formal congressional investigation into a troubling pattern of abusive conduct and obstruction of independent journalism and congressional oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”
Nate Sigal, a spokesperson for Rep. Grijalva’s office, said the office will be looking into Sunday’s incident.
“It is deeply concerning that a federal agent shattered the window of an elderly man who did not appear to pose any threat, especially if the passenger door was already open. I am also concerned about two of the ICE officers in the video appearing to antagonize onlookers – part of a broader trend of poorly trained agents acting unprofessionally and agitating rather than de-escalating,” Grijalva’s office said in a statement to Arizona Luminaria. “Congress should not provide continued funding to this rogue agency that continues to operate recklessly and without any accountability.”
This is the first time Davis has responded to one of the Rapid Response Network calls. He said the experience has left him shaken.
“I just care for this man and feel so bad for his family, waiting at home for him to bring home the Sunday groceries for breakfast or whatever, and his work tools,” Davis said.
“This is a man who’s not going to show up at the workplace tomorrow and people are going to wonder where he is. It breaks my heart and that’s why I’m there.”
Reporter Yana Kunichoff contributed to this story.
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