A federal agent is facing assault and criminal mischief charges after he pushed a woman to the ground and took her phone during a protest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Durango, officials said Tuesday.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Nicholas Rice, 47, is facing a misdemeanor and petty offense charge after he “was involved in an immigration enforcement activity in Durango,” the Sixth Judicial District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.
The DA’s office did not provide further details about the case, only referring to the “incident at (the) ICE facility in Durango” on Oct. 28 that was investigated by the .
CBI officials began investigating after a widely shared video showed a masked federal officer snatched a woman’s phone, then grabbed her and threw her to the ground when she tried to take it back during a protest outside the ICE facility in southern Colorado.
Protesters gathered outside the facility after immigration agents arrested a Durango father and his two children while he was taking them to school the morning of Oct. 27. An ICE official later testified that the agents pulled over the wrong person but decided to arrest the man, Fernando Jaramillo-Solano, and his 12- and 15-year-old children anyway.
Jaramillo-Solano, who is Colombian, later requested voluntary departure from the U.S. because of “mental, physical and emotional trauma” he and his children experienced while detained in Texas, advocates said in November.
The family, including the children’s mother, who was not detained, was living in Durango with a pending asylum case at the time of the arrest.
Customs and Border Protection officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night. Rice could not be reached for comment about the case.
The case against Rice was filed less than a week after with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a Minneapolis-area highway.
Both cases raise questions about whether they could intensify clashes between the states and President Donald Trump’s administration over immigration enforcement. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, has warned that the Justice Department could investigate and prosecute state or local officials who arrest federal agents for actions performed during their official duties.
Rice was issued a court summons for the charges on Tuesday and is set to appear in court for an advisement hearing on May 27, court records show.
