An ICE agent sprayed observers at the Santa Barbara County Jail early this Tuesday morning, on hand to bear witness as ICE agents took possession of prisoners released into their custody. One of the observers notified the county supervisors during the supervisors’ meeting that she and her cohorts had been pushed, shoved, and violently treated by ICE agents. She told the supervisors they had not confronted the agents, gotten in their face, or intruded in their space. A brief snippet of video released by one of the protesters showed one of them getting sprayed without any apparent provocation.
[Click to expand] Credit: Courtesy
According to the observer addressing the supervisors, sheriff’s deputies were asked to offer some protection; they reportedly declined, replying only that they were not cooperating with ICE. According to another observer, they asked the deputies to take an incident report. That request was reportedly declined.
According to Raquel Zick, spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, the protesters had initially asked the deputies to arrest the offending ICE agents. They were told, Zick said, that the deputies could not legally arrest them. Later, Zick said, the observer who got sprayed called the Sheriff’s Office from Cottage Hospital and asked that his incident report be taken. At that point, Zick said, his report was taken.
