Linda Wolff said she was recording a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Inwood Thursday when a masked federal agent sprayed her with a chemical irritant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was walking toward me, and I was like, \u2018He\u2019s not going to mace me,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Wolff had confronted a tow truck driver who arrived after two vehicles used by federal agents appeared to have flat tires.<\/p>\n
Seconds later, the agent walked toward Wolff and sprayed her.<\/p>\n
She said her sunglasses partially protected her eyes, and the adrenaline kept her recording the scene on her phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all over my hair, my face, my lips, my clothes, my hands,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
By Friday, Wolff was back on so-called ICE watch, but this time in Elmhurst.<\/p>\n
The Upper West Side resident and other volunteers track immigration enforcement reports, warn neighbors and document agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re training them to document, document, document. Stay back and document,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
In Inwood, City Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa spent the day handing residents pamphlets with information so they know their rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fear is real. We can feel it in our community as we\u2019re a majority immigrant community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
De La Rosa said that\u2019s why she\u2019s taking the information directly to residents, hoping they\u2019re prepared before ICE shows up at their door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very cautious for myself, my family members,\u201d Inwood resident Robert Arzola said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day, there\u2019s a sighting of some sort. Yesterday\u2019s escalation, I felt, was not normal,\u201d De La Rosa said.<\/p>\n
For Wolff, Thursday\u2019s confrontation is now heading to court.<\/p>\n
She said she plans to sue and says being sprayed won\u2019t stop her from documenting future ICE operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t violent. We\u2019re not violent,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NY1\u2019s inquiry regarding this story.<\/p>\n
In a separate inquiry response, the agency blamed the state\u2019s policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Linda Wolff said she was recording a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Inwood Thursday when a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[387,25,388,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,27],"class_list":["post-311329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-louis-finley","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}