🔗 Share this article

Attorneys acting for a producer from Chicago's WGN television station who was briefly held by federal agents last week characterize the incident as "an occurrence that ought to alarm and frighten each individual in this country".

Particulars of the Detainment

The journalist, a American national and WGN employee, was taken into custody on Friday by government officers during an ICE operation in a North Side Chicago area. Footage from the location depict Brockman being forced to the ground by two agents before she is handcuffed and placed in a vehicle.

At the time, a government spokesperson stated that Brockman "threw objects at border patrol's car" and was "detained for attacking an officer".

Subsequently that day, WGN announced that their employee had been released from federal custody and that no charges had been filed against her.

Legal Team's Reaction

In a news release released by lawyers acting for Brockman on earlier this week, her legal team challenged the government's account. They declared they "strongly refute any claim that she attacked anyone" and that "She was the one who was violently assaulted by federal agents on her way to work" on 10 October.

Her attorneys explain that at the moment of the arrest, Brockman was "not acting in any professional capacity as an staff member for WGN" but that she was just "heading to the transit point as part of her daily travel when she was confronted by Border Patrol agents.

"Brockman, who is a US Citizen born in this country, was violently detained on Foster Avenue," the release adds. "As this occurred, bystanders on the street began filming the event and asked her her name."

The statement indicates that she informed the onlookers her name and that she was employed at the station, in the hopes that "a person would notify her employer so coworkers would know that she would not be coming at work that day", her lawyers stated.

Consequences and Next Steps

According to her legal team, Brockman was kept in government detention for about seven hours before being released.

"The individual has not been charged with any offenses and she intends to explore all legal options open to her to vindicate her entitlements and ensure government accountability for their conduct," the release adds.

"Brad Thomson, one of her attorneys, commented in the release: "If armed, covered, federal agents are taking US citizens off the street as they walk to work and placing them in unmarked vehicles, you can only conceive what these agents must be prepared to do to our immigrant neighbors and people who choose to speak out against them."

"Ms Brockman was taken to the ground, battered, handcuffed, and her pants were lowered exposing her uncovered skin," Thomson said. "Not anyone should be handled like that in this city, in this nation or anywhere else in the world."

Immigration authorities, the Department of Homeland Security, and the border agency did not provide a prompt reply to requests for comment from news outlets.