New body camera footage shows aftermath of ICE officer allegedly attacking activist near Chicago

An off-duty immigration enforcement officer admitted to tossing a 68-year-old protester to the ground to stop him from filming at a suburban gas station, according to newly released body camera footage obtained by the Sun-Times.

In the words of a local law enforcement officer, who responded to the scene: “Don’t look good…f---ing grabbed at him, f---ing gets him on the f---ing ground.”

Robert Held told Brookfield police he followed ICE officer Adam Saracco from the Broadview ICE facility and was recording him as he stopped for gas. He said Saracco then threw him to the ground.

“Yeah, I was trying to grab his phone from out of his hand,” Saracco tells Brookfield police when asked about the allegations.

“He get physical with you at all?” the Brookfield officer asks in response.

“I mean he was actively resisting,” Saracco said. “He wouldn’t let me take his phone out of his hands.”

Video footage obtained by the Sun-Times only shows police’s response to the incident.

One witness told officers she saw an “old man” being “tackled and pulled around” by Saracco. Another witness said he pulled over when he saw Saracco throw Held to the ground.

Saracco now faces one misdemeanor count of battery in connection with the Dec. 27 attack at a gas station in the 9200 block of East 31st Street, according to Brookfield police and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s office.

His employer appears to be redacted from all records provided to the Sun-Times, but the federal officials have already identified him as an “off duty ICE law enforcement officer.”

Saracco initially denies being a member of law enforcement. When Held tells officers he followed Saracco from the Broadview ICE facility, they follow up with additional questions but Saracco’s response is partially redacted.

Saracco also talks extensively about being targeted for his work in the video footage. “Do you understand the seriousness of this and the doxxing and the things that occur with me and my work and everything,” Saracco tells a Brookfield officer.

In a statement released earlier this week, federal officials claimed Saracco had been “targeted and aggressively harassed by a known ICE agitator,” and was “responding to a direct threat against him and his safety.”

“These were clear attempts to dox our officer,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “The officer, who was alone and without protective equipment, acted to protect himself when faced with this threatening behavior.”

The only threat Saracco mentions in the redacted video footage is Held’s phone: “I tried to grab his phone and get the images and the videos off his phone.”

“I don’t know who this guy is,” Saracco said. “I don’t like him sticking a camera in my face. I wanted to know what he was doing. I wanted to get the picture and delete it.”

Held, an attorney and well-known activist, maintains that he was “not a threat."

“I have an artificial hip and was calmly standing with a camera on a sidewalk,” Held wrote in a statement. “He is a federal agent who tried to silence me with violence.”

Saracco’s first court appearance is set for early March.