Screenshot of video provided to Phoenix New Times
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Monday afternoon, federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations raided several Zipps Sports Grill locations across the Valley. Though it’s unknown what prompted the investigation — the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said only that agents were executing several warrants — the raids drew protests at several Zipps locations from residents fed up with Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Arizona. HSI is a division of ICE.
The raid at the Zipps at Park Central in midtown Phoenix drew roughly 200 protesters and observers, including Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari. And the raid at the Zipps at 32nd Street and Shea Boulevard attracted roughly 50 protesters. Video provided to Phoenix New Times by one of those observers — who asked not to be identified — showed the final minutes of the raid before federal agents left the restaurant.
As agents left in a series of cars and trucks heading south down 32nd Street, the video shows, an agent doused the protesters in pepper-spray through the passenger window of a departing vehicle. Several protesters were hit by the spray, and at least one protester fell to the ground in pain as others rushed to find her water and a towel.
It’s not clear what justification, if any, the agent had for deploying a chemical irritant against the protesters. Video shows the protesters had confined themselves to the sidewalk and were not impeding the agents from departing in their vehicles, which were parked on 32nd Street. Though one protester appeared to toss an empty water bottle at one of the cars as they drove off, it harmlessly bounced off the vehicle in front one carrying the agent who maced the protesters.
“It was super close, maybe 5 feet or something,” said the person who filmed the video. “ICE was barely driving away from the curb and protestors were standing right there on the sidewalk yelling.”
The video provided by the person is roughly eight minutes long. (To protect the person’s identity, New Times is not publishing the video in its entirety.) Earlier portions of the video show protesters gathered behind yellow police tape that extends into the Zipps parking lot. Several armed and masked HSI agents stand behind the tape as protesters yell and chant.
At one point, more agents armed with less-lethal pepperball launchers arrived to help clear a path for law enforcement vehicles to exit from the cordoned-off portion of the parking lot. A few protesters refused to move, leading a couple agents to forcibly (but not roughly) move them out of the way. One agent appeared to fire pepperballs at a protester’s feet, though the protester did not seem to be affected.
The vehicles then exited the lot and lined up, lights flashing, along 32nd Street. The protesters gathered on the adjoining sidewalk to jeer at them as they left, only to be hit by pepper-spray as the agents sped away.
Bryan Chaparro was one of the people maced. “If it wasn’t for my glasses, I would probably be blind,” he told New Times. “I was able to turn, so it hit my glasses but it went down my throat.”
New Times has asked ICE what justification the agent had for deploying a chemical irritant and has also requested any policy documents governing the use of pepper spray. ICE has not responded.
Since President Donald Trump reentered the White House a year ago, ICE has shown a pattern of disproportionate use of force against protesters, residents and detainees. The agency and its agents have been documented deploying pepper spray at close range and without provocation and shoving people to the ground (including, in one instance, into traffic in front of an oncoming bus). More tragically, federal agents this month have shot and killed two American citizens — Renee Good, who was steering a car away from agents when she was shot, and Alex Pretti, who was filming agents when he was pepper-sprayed, tackled and shot in the back multiple times after an agent removed his legally carried firearm from his holster.
That use of force has drawn particularly vocal criticism from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose office has created a portal for residents to send in evidence of civil rights abuses by federal law enforcement in Arizona. In a statement attributable to the attorney general’s office, Mayes spokesperson Richie Taylor said, “What appears to happen in the video is unacceptable. It is not how policing should work and it is no way to enforce the law.”
Sara Crocker contributed to this report.
