Neighbors living on Norton Street in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighborhood woke Wednesday morning to sounds of screaming.
Witnesses told TribLive they watched federal agents hit, tackle, pepper spray and arrest a Latino man between 8 and 8:30 a.m.
“This is a new level of violence than we’ve seen in the city,” said Jaime Martinez, executive director of Frontline DIGNITY, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants.
Martinez said he spoke with witnesses who saw the incident unfold.
According to accounts given to Martinez and to TribLive, two unmarked vehicles sandwiched a white Tacoma pickup on the 400 block of Norton Street.
They said agents broke the truck’s driver’s side window, pulled a man from the car and got into a physical altercation with him.
At least some of the agents on the scene were from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, according to Pittsburgh police.
Neighbors who saw the incident — including some who recorded it — said the agents punched the man and shoved him to the ground.
The truck — with an American flag decal in the back window — was still parked along Norton Street on Wednesday afternoon with a shattered driver’s side window.
Martinez said witnesses told him that agents pinned the man — who he could not identify — to the ground, even as he told them he could not breathe.
Pepper spray was deployed and seemed to get in the eyes of both the man being detained and at least one immigration agent.
One witness said he believed an ICE agent had been the one to pull out the pepper spray.
The man being detained was put in the back of an SUV, witnesses said, and not permitted to take water from a neighbor offering to help him clean out his eyes after the pepper spray.
The man was later moved to a van and driven away, witnesses said.
Two witnesses told TribLive they recognized the man and his truck from the neighborhood but did not know him personally.
As he was being led to the van, the man yelled in Spanish asking if he could take his phone.
Peter Blazak, 33, said he heard noises and saw flashing lights outside his home around 8 a.m.
“It looks like they were kind of wrestling with him,” Blazak said of the scene he saw unfold outside his home in what he described as a usually quiet street. “I heard a lot of screaming and shouting. It didn’t sound peaceful.”
Blazak said the man seemed to be kicking at the door or window of the van after agents had handcuffed him and put him in the vehicle.
A neighbor called Pittsburgh police, who were not initially on the scene when ICE detained the man.
Video obtained by TribLive shows several city police officers and at least one paramedic.
Martinez said he did not believe Pittsburgh police were cooperating with immigration officials. Witnesses said local police did not seem to assist ICE even after they arrived on scene.
Cara Cruz, a Pittsburgh public safety spokeswoman, said police responded to the 400 block of Norton Street around 8:25 a.m. “following multiple calls for an individual fighting with unknown law enforcement officers in the street.”
Medics arrived to evaluate “all parties,” including ICE agents and the man who was the “target of their operation,” Cruz said in a statement.
“Of note, Pittsburgh police is not apprised of ICE activity, such as federal administrative warrant service, in the City of Pittsburgh and does not assist ICE agents with such operations,” Cruz said. “Pittsburgh police officers respond to emergency calls for service in their jurisdiction.”
In January, Mayor Ed Gainey said Pittsburgh would not work with ICE.
“My administration will not work with ICE,” Gainey said during a PA Press Club event in Harrisburg. “We will do whatever’s necessary to make our city more welcoming. That’s what we’re built on.”
Jason Koontz, a spokesperson for ICE based in Philadelphia, said he was aware of the incident but could not immediately provide comment.