Five days after a federal agent was recorded shoving an Ecuadorian woman into a wall at 26 Federal Plaza as she pleaded for her detained husband, chaos erupted once more around 10:15 a.m. Tuesday morning on the building’s 12th floor.
When two women stepped into an elevator at 26 Federal Plaza, masked ICE agents in plainclothes followed them inside, their faces covered and identities concealed, according to footage from the incident taken by a freelance photojournalist there.
Observing the scene from the hallway and elevator bank, reporters documenting the arrests of court attendees there suddenly found themselves in the crossfire. Footage of the scene show that after amNewYork’s police bureau chief Dean Moses attempted to enter the elevator behind them, he was grabbed and forcibly pulled out by masked agents as one shouted, “Get out of the fucking elevator.”
A second photojournalist outside the elevator — Olga Fedorova, a freelancer working for the Associated Press — was then thrown hard to the floor, according to the footage and numerous reports. Her fall toppled another photojournalist directly behind her — identified as L. Vural Elibol of the Turkish news agency Anadolu — who hit his head on the floor.
“People immediately started screaming because he was seriously injured,” Moses told amNewYork. “He was semiconscious, but he didn’t move from the position for 35 to 40 minutes.”
In one of two exclusive photos of the incident obtained by Documented, below, Elibol is seen on the ground with his eyes rolled back into his head, which is resting on a tarp. The other, above, shows him eventually being carried away on a stretcher in a neck brace as three policemen stand nearby.
Officials offered a sharply different account. In a statement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that “officers were swarmed by agitators and members of the press, which obstructed operations” to arrest a person she described as “an illegal alien from Peru.”
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“Officers repeatedly told the crowd of agitators and journalists to get back, move, and get out of the elevator,” McLaughlin said. “Rioters and sanctuary politicians who encourage individuals to interfere with arrests are actively creating hostile environments that put officers, detainees and the public in harm’s way.”
Those on site disputed that characterization. There were “no agitators or any members of the press preventing them from doing anything,” Moses told amNY.
26 Federal Plaza is a federal building open to the public. Fedorova said that the agents had not outlined any limitations on where journalists could go and had not even made clear that they were making an arrest as they entered the elevator.
“If they tell us to get out, to not cross a certain line, we follow their orders,” Fedorova told the AP. “In this case, it was not clear to anyone that this was a detention at all.”
Elected officials denounced the treatment of the press, drawing a line between the latest clash from five days ago — in which that officer was briefly suspended before being reinstated Monday — and the building’s growing reputation as a flashpoint for aggressive enforcement.
“Another violent attack by an ICE officer on a civilian at 26 Federal Plaza — this time on a journalist, who had to be carried out on [a] stretcher,” City Comptroller Brad Lander wrote on X. “Another attack on the First Amendment, our neighbors, and our democracy.”
你知道吗？非公民办理驾照时的这个错误可能会导致选民欺诈
Gov. Kathy Hochul also chimed in.
“This abuse of law-abiding immigrants and the reporters telling their stories must end,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wrote in a post on X. “What the hell are we doing here?”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams condemned the agents in a statement for appearing to act as if with impunity. Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani said, “We cannot accept or normalize what has now become routine violence at 26 Federal Plaza.”
