He faced a jury and brandished an object that he claimed was “used as a sword” to assault federal officers during a protest in downtown Los Angeles in July.
Object specified by the US Atty assistant. Suspect Patrick Kibe said it was used as a weapon. The umbrella weighed less than a pound, so investigators needed a special scale to weigh it.
For months, Trump administration officials have cited violence against federal law enforcement officers conducting the president’s deportation campaign as justification for aggressive tactics, including threats to deploy the National Guard and Marines. The Department of Homeland Security touted a staggering 1,000% increase in assaults against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
But a Times analysis of court records related to assaults on federal law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Ore., Chicago and Washington, D.C., shows that the vast majority of alleged attacks did not result in injuries to employees. In about 42% of the incidents investigated by the Times, federal law enforcement officers were shoved, spat on, swung around or had water bottles thrown at them, according to court affidavits.
At the umbrella assault trial in October, prosecutors offered no evidence of injury. In Los Angeles and across the country, defendants accused of assaulting federal officers have been acquitted or had their charges dropped. More than a third of the cases analyzed by the Times ended in dismissal or acquittal because the defendant was deported. None of the cases ended in a conviction at trial.
In response to a question from the Times about the number of assaults, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said: “Our law enforcement officers face terrorist attacks, shootings, vehicular assaults, bomb threats, assaults, identity theft and more.”
McLaughlin cited a case in Houston last month in which an ICE agent received 13 stitches for burns after being hit with a metal coffee cup by an illegal immigrant. In another incident she reported, an alleged gang member in Nebraska brutally beat an ICE officer in June, leaving him hospitalized with severe head injuries.
President Trump cited the 1,000% increase in a memo directing federal law enforcement agencies to investigate “domestic terrorism,” and federal officials have repeatedly cited the figure to justify aggressive tactics against protesters and the need for employees to wear masks to avoid identification.
Homeland Security officials ignored multiple requests to release a complete list of alleged assaults. The agency announced in late November that the number of assaults on ICE officers increased by 1,153% from January 21 to November 21, with 238 assaults reported this year compared to 19 during the same period in 2024.
The five jurisdictions analyzed by the Times were federal districts where the Trump administration has conducted large-scale law enforcement and immigration operations or threatened to deploy the military in anticipation of the dangers faced by federal employees. In these areas, 163 cases of assault against federal employees were filed between January 21 and November 21. This is a 26% increase from 129 cases in the same region and period in 2024. It released similar numbers earlier this year.
The 2024 data is also inflated by Washington prosecutors’ filing of assault charges against the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. President Trump pardoned all of these defendants.
The Times analysis documented assaults against federal employees of all types. In about 60% of those cases, ICE or Border Patrol agents were reported as victims.
David Beer, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the government is relying on shocking proportions to advance the narrative without proper context.
“They are justifying why it is necessary to use extreme force against arrestees and the general public when interacting with individuals on the street.” “I think that’s the main purpose: saying, ‘We’re under attack. We’re under attack every day, so we need to be able to use extreme force, including military support.'”
In just over half of the cases reviewed by the Times, court records show that the officers who were allegedly assaulted suffered no physical injuries. In approximately 30% of incidents, officers sustained minor injuries such as bruises from punches, kicks, and bites.
Twenty-six incidents resulted in serious injuries or required medical attention by staff. An ICE officer in Portland was hit in the head with a rock, a federal agent in Los Angeles suffered dislocated and broken fingers, and some officers said they were attacked with their own batons and stun guns as they tried to restrain people.
The Times analysis does not capture serious incidents in other jurisdictions or attacks for which no charges were filed. Twice this year, assailants opened fire at ICE facilities in Texas, hitting immigrant detainees and local police officers.
The only documented incident this year in which a federal law enforcement officer was shot and killed during an immigration raid occurred in Los Angeles in October. The incident involved shots fired from an ICE officer’s gun.
One National Guard member was killed and another was seriously injured in a shooting in Washington last week. Both were part of President Trump’s anti-crime efforts. Officials said the gunman was originally from Afghanistan and was admitted to the United States in 2021 as part of a Biden administration program to help people fleeing the Taliban, and his asylum request was approved under the Trump administration.
An undocumented immigrant from Mexico was also arrested on Nov. 8 for allegedly firing at a Border Patrol agent in Chicago, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The suspect was identified as Hector Gomez, but the criminal complaint does not mention firing at the agents. DHS did not respond to inquiries from Fox affiliates.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) is among those questioning the administration’s claims. During a Nov. 19 subcommittee hearing titled “ICE Under Fire: The Radical Left’s Crusade Against Immigration Enforcement,” Padilla asked why there were no government witnesses “to provide the facts and data behind the numbers that the Department of Homeland Security frequently cites to claim an increase in assaults against officers and personnel.”
“Today’s hearing is not a serious attempt to protect law enforcement,” Padilla said. “This is designed to galvanize the propaganda machine and encourage even more brutal immigration enforcement efforts.”
It is said that deadly weapons were used in some of the incidents, and suspicions are only deepening. A District of Columbia man has been charged with throwing a Subway sandwich. In Portland, a woman was charged with assault with a tambourine. In Los Angeles, federal agents alleged assaults involving hats, work bags, flags, and umbrellas.
On June 7, in the early days of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in California, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino stood in Paramount and sounded like he was preparing his officers for battle.
“Arrest as many people as you like for touching you. That’s the general order all the way up to the top,” Bovino told protesters in tactical gear who had gathered nearby.
“Anyone can tell when they touch you,” Bovino said. “This is our city.”
The next day, the National Guard was deployed and President Trump publicly claimed that Los Angeles was under siege.
Bovino’s clip was played that day at the Paramount during the trial of Breian Ramos-Brito, who is accused of shoving a Border Patrol agent. Video evidence shows the agent shoving Ramos-Brito, but it does not clearly show him pushing the agent back.
Bovino testified that even touching a staff member “could be assault, depending on the circumstances. Spitting on someone could also be assault.”
After about an hour of deliberations, Bovino testified that he witnessed Ramos-Brito shove the deputy.
Federal prosecutors have charged 71 people with assaulting federal employees this year, and 21 of those charges have been dismissed or acquitted, according to Los Angeles court records. Only nine such lawsuits were filed in 2024.
Bill Ezeili was said to not be “reading too much into” the redundancy figures at a press conference in October.
“We are time sensitive when filing charges, so if investigators need more time to gather evidence, we may dismiss the case without prejudice, allowing us to take the case back at our option,” he said.
In the past, the U.S. attorney’s office “almost never charged anyone” with assault unless the interaction turned violent, said a former ICE official who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“There were guys spitting on us and all sorts of other things and it was like, ‘Hey, that’s part of the job,'” the source said.
Law enforcement experts said they expected an increase in assaults as interactions between immigration officials and citizens increased dramatically during President Trump’s second term.
John Sandweg, who led ICE under President Obama, said he believes new tactics are driving the increase. Under the previous administration, ICE focused on targeted operations.
“If we change our tactics and put our agents in broad daylight, in Home Depot parking lots, when the city is in crisis, we’re just going to increase the number of incidents where some sort of assault occurs,” he said.
In many of the cases investigated by the Times, the defendants were arrested and charged with assault after Border Patrol or ICE agents initiated physical contact.
Andrea Velez, a 4-foot-11 American citizen, is accused of standing in the path of an ICE agent with her arms outstretched in downtown Los Angeles during a June confrontation, hitting him in the head and chest. Her attorney previously said masked men ran toward Berreth and one pushed her to the ground. Fearing he might be kidnapped, Velez protected himself with his work bag.
Velez’s attorney requested body-worn camera video and witness testimony cited in the complaint. Shortly after, prosecutors dropped the case.
In Chicago, four assault cases were filed against protesters who ignored orders to disperse outside immigration detention facilities and were shoved and punched by Border Patrol agents. One of the defendants was a 70-year-old military veteran. All charges were dropped, records show.
In another incident in Los Angeles, a man was charged with assault after hitting a staff member with a hat. Video footage from the scene in August showed Jonathon Redondo-Rosales, a man hit by a government vehicle, being thrown around as officers moved to tackle him to the ground.
In October, Marimar Martinez was shot five times by Border Patrol agents after she allegedly disrupted a Chicago operation by following her in her car. Photos included in the criminal complaint show Martinez suffered minor injuries when he was struck by a CBP vehicle.
But a month later, prosecutors took a sharp turn toward dismissing the charges against Martinez. A spokesperson for the Illinois U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement that prosecutors are “continuously evaluating new facts and information regarding the case and investigation.”
Martinez’s attorney, Damon Chelonis, thanked prosecutors for doing the right thing after reviewing the Border Patrol’s exaggerated claims against Martinez.
“In the criminal complaint, there were numerous allegations that our client was physically assaulted. There were all reports that our client had an assault weapon or was a domestic terrorist,” he said. “None of that was true.”
Vehicle attacks on ICE officers by Homeland Security officials. Since January 20, there have been 28 attacks reported this year, a significant increase from 2 in 2024.
Of the 26 suspected vehicle attacks captured in the Times analysis, five resulted in serious injuries. A member of the Department of Homeland Security’s task force was hospitalized with a “possible sternum fracture” after being hit by a car in the San Diego suburb of National City in November, according to DHS.
A small number of other L.A. incidents resulted in officers seeking medical evaluation. In September, an ICE officer was struck by a skateboard while attempting to make an arrest in downtown Los Angeles, requiring medical treatment, records show.
The month before, Oscar Magana Reyes stole an ICE agent’s Taser while allegedly trying to flee an immigration arrest in San Bernardino, temporarily incapacitating him with a blow to the groin. Reyes was indicted in October and is awaiting trial.
Although more incidents are being reported, available data still shows that local law enforcement officers are far more likely to be attacked in the line of duty than immigration officers. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies faced about 600 assaults between January and October of this year, more than double the on-duty assault charges ICE officers faced nationwide between January 21 and November 21, according to sheriff’s department records.
Caris Kubrin, a professor of law, criminology and sociology at the University of California, Irvine, said it was misleading for the government to tout an increase of more than 1,000%, given that the increase was from a baseline of almost zero assaults on law enforcement officers.
“This is what sociology calls a moral panic,” she says. “When you use statistics and other things to create or socially construct problems that are bigger than they really are, it creates a moral panic.”
The trial of Alexandria Augustine, 25, who was charged with assaulting a federal officer with an umbrella, lasted several days in October.
Augustine told the Times that he was offered various plea deals over the course of several months, but decided to take his chance in front of a jury.
“The purpose of all this activity is to keep people off the streets and in court,” she said. “They have far more resources and power than we do, so they don’t expect us to fight back.”
During the trial, prosecutor Kibe held up the metal skeleton of an umbrella and told jurors that Augustine used it to strike a Federal Protective Service inspector in the arm and chest.
Deputy Federal Public Defender Aden Kasai said Augustin opened his umbrella to protect fellow protesters. She said it was a federal agent who grabbed the umbrella and tore the fabric off.
“What happened here was not an assault,” Kasai told jurors.
When Officer Alexandro Gutierrez took the stand, he said he grabbed an umbrella to block his view. He testified that Augustin said, “If you want it, come here,” and threw it at him overhand.
“These things can potentially cause serious harm,” he told jurors. He was not wearing a face shield and testified that the umbrella’s metal ribs may have pierced his eyes.
Among those appearing at Augustine’s trial was Margaret Ortiz, an Army veteran who was charged with assault after she allegedly struck a federal agent in the chin, nose, and eye with a black flag cloth she was carrying. The case against her was later dismissed.
“I wanted to go to trial,” Ortiz said outside the courtroom. “It would be foolish to continue like this.”
During closing arguments, Supervising Deputy Federal Public Defender Rebecca Abel said Mr. Augustin threw up his umbrella, but it fell and connected with Mr. Gutierrez. The umbrella “couldn’t hurt a fly, let alone hurt a 260-pound man” wearing a Kevlar vest, she said.
“I barely touched him. He wasn’t hurt,” Abel said. “This case started with protests… It should never have ended here in federal court.”
Within hours, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
Times researcher Carrie Schneider and data and graphics reporter Gabriel Lamarre Lemy contributed to this report.
