Officials demand answers after violent ICE confrontation with Frederick protesters

Elected officials were demanding answers Tuesday after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement confrontation with protesters in Frederick turned violent over the weekend.

And they weren’t the only ones.

“People were legitimately scared and pretty much terrorized by ICE for two full days before things escalated on Friday night. If you didn’t take anybody into custody, why did you even show up?” asked Tatiana Santos, a member of Indivisible Frederick Forward who witnessed some of what happened in the Tasker’s Chance neighborhood Friday night.

Protesters turned up Thursday after they learned that ICE agents were in the neighborhood, apparently staking out a house.

On Friday, after blocking the street, protesters could be seen locking arms and going to the house as a human barrier, according to video of the incident provided by Hagerstown Rapid Response.

At that point, the video shows ICE agents moving in, grabbing and pushing the protesters, with at least one agent hitting a person on the ground with a baton, the scene illuminated by the headlights and police lights of ICE vehicles on the scene.

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“It felt like they [ICE agents] were just terrorizing people. You don’t get brutal with people. It’s inhumane,” Soolah Kemp said Tuesday. She was a member of the Hagerstown group that showed up to support residents in the Frederick neighborhood.

Santos and Kemp called on the Maryland Attorney General’s Office  to investigate what happened, but the office declined to comment Tuesday.

Representatives with ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

Jennifer Gerlock, manager of public affairs with the city of Frederick, said in an email Tuesday the city isn’t aware of any arrests made by federal authorities during the incicent. Frederick Police, who were called to the scene at 9 p.m. Friday in response to “escalating tensions between protesters and federal agents,” did not make any arrests at the scene, Gerlock said.

“FPD was not notified in advance of the federal law enforcement operation and was not involved in its planning or execution,” Gerlock said. “Our officers’ role was to maintain public safety, protect life and property, and help prevent further escalation between those gathered and the federal agents conducting the operation.”

Gerlock continued: “Officers worked to ensure that individuals could lawfully exercise their constitutional rights while also helping to prevent actions that could lead to physical confrontations or arrests. FPD was not there to assist ICE in carrying out its federal enforcement operation.”

Gov. Wes Moore (D), asked Tuesday about the Frederick incident, said his office was monitoring the situation throughout the Labor Day weekend. But he expressed concerns about “this latest iteration of ICE,” which he said is larger than the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“While I know that there are still things that are being investigated right now, it’s a continuation of the challenge that we have with this latest iteration of ICE,” he said. “The … continued problem that I have with how these actions are being used and utilized — not with our communities, but just in and to our communities — is something that I continue to have very real challenge and very real issues with.”

Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-6th), whose district includes Frederick, said the confrontation is “deeply concerning.”

“I am especially disturbed by reports that ICE agents used force against Frederick residents,” McClain Delaney said in a statement. “These allegations demand immediate answers and a full, transparent investigation.”

Del. Kris Fair (D-Frederick), whose district includes the Tasker’s Chance neighborhood but wasn’t present when ICE was there Friday, hopes an investigation by state and federal officials will occur to determine if anyone’s civil rights were violated, especially after he watched video footage of the “erratic behavior” of ICE agents.

“We continue to watch the brutalization of our communities by overly aggressive law enforcement power structures,” Fair said. “I’m hoping that our society as a whole can look at this situation truly, deeply, and reflectively, and ask itself if this is the kind of society that we want to live in where law enforcement goes in without any regard for public safety and escalates a situation which was otherwise non-existent prior to Thursday.”

He said Congress has “the power of the purse string here. ICE answers to them. They need to utilize their unilateral power that they have to rein in these out-of-control federal agents.”