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DURANGO, Colo. (KDVR) — A protester is still in shock days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent carried and threw her to the ground in Durango earlier this week. The whole incident was caught on camera and is now being reviewed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
57-year-old Franci Stagi went to the ICE facility in Durango early Tuesday morning to protest the detainment of Fernando Jaramillo-Solano, and more specifically, his two kids, aged 12 and 15.
“When I’m talking about it, it’s really scary,” Stagi said.
She says she got to the ICE facility just after 5 a.m. When agents eventually showed up, she began taking a video, asking an agent wearing a mask to show his face. The agent is then seen on the video swatting the phone from her hand.
Stagi says in a knee-jerk reaction, she grabbed the agent’s shoulder.
“As I did that, I realized I should not have touched him,” Stagi said. “He can touch us; he can abduct children. He can physically take people off the street and shove them using his full body weight into a vehicle. But I’m not allowed to touch his shoulder.”
The agent is then seen quickly turning around and grabbing Stagi and eventually throwing her to the ground.
“He carried me around by my head basically for quite a ways,” Stagi said. “He just threw me with his might. Like it wasn’t a gentle, let go of her type of thing. I was thrown down an embankment.”
Stagi says she fell on her head and neck, but the grass kept her from serious injury. She still feared for her safety, saying agents stood over her.
“I thought they were going to kick me to death,” Stagi said.
Stagi says she was eventually helped up by another protester, but says she saw others hit with pepper spray and rubber bullets later on.
“They physically opened a woman’s mouth and again, that long spray down her throat,” Stagi said.
ICE declined to comment directly on the interaction with Stagi, instead giving us a statement on the protest as a whole, saying in part, “While ICE respects First Amendment rights to peaceful protest, extreme protestors often misrepresent ICE’s mission.”
The statement also said, “Such disruptions have also contributed to a 1,000% increase in assaults on ICE officers and agents, who work tirelessly to enforce immigration laws and protect public safety.”
Stagi says despite feeling scared, she has no plans to stop speaking out.
“Somebody’s got to stand up for these people, these children,” Stagi said.
The CBI is now investigating any state criminal law violations in the incident, and says any possible charges will come from the district attorney once their investigation is complete.
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Anthony Sutton is a business strategist and writer with a passion for management, leadership, and entrepreneurship. With years of experience in the corporate world, he shares insights on business growth, strategy, and innovation through management-opleiding.org.
