The WGN TV employee detained by federal agents last week in Lincoln Square was released without charges and intends to “pursue all legal avenues” to hold the federal authorities accountable, her lawyer said in a statement.
Debbie Brockman, who works for the station’s creative services department, is a U.S.-born citizen and was not acting in any professional capacity when she was arrested Friday by U.S. Border Patrol agents on the North Side, according to a statement from her attorneys at the People’s Law Office.
She was walking to catch a bus to work on Foster Avenue when she was “attacked by Border Patrol agents” and “violently detained,” according to the statement. Brockman also denied that she assaulted anyone.
Several bystanders witnessed her arrest and described the scene as “violent” and “horrifying” to a Chicago Sun-Times reporter.
“This incident should be alarming and horrifying to every single person in this country,” said Brad Thomson, one of Brockman’s attorneys. “If armed, masked, federal agents are snatching U.S. citizens off the street as they walk to work and throwing them in unmarked vehicles, you can only imagine what these agents must be willing to do to our immigrant neighbors and people who dare to speak out against them.”
In a social media post after Brockman’s arrest, Gregory Bovino, commander-at-large of the U.S. Border Patrol, said “a member of the press threw a metal object at Border Patrol” and was arrested for assaulting a federal officer.
But Brockman was released without charges after she was held in federal custody for seven hours, her lawyer said. WGN said during a newscast covering her arrest that Brockman’s department is separate from the newsroom.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol agents were operating in the area when “violent agitators” blocked agents with their cars. The agents then slammed into a car they say was blocking the street as they were leaving the scene, according to the statement.
Video reviewed by the Sun-Times shows a black SUV stopped diagonally in front of the federal agents’ silver Chrysler minivan just as they were about to leave. The agents did not try to go around the SUV. Instead, an agent got out of the van and walked up to the SUV, trying to open its door. When that was unsuccessful, the agents returned to the van and quickly pulled away, hitting the side of the SUV as the van sped away.
When the agents were driving away, the Homeland Security Department’s statement claims Brockman “threw objects” at a Border Patrol car. Agents then arrested her for assaulting a federal law enforcement officer.
The department did not answer a question asking why Brockman was released without being charged with that offense.
Brockman “intends to pursue all legal avenues available to her to vindicate her rights and hold the federal authorities accountable for their actions,” according to her lawyers’ statement.
“Ms. Brockman was taken to the ground, battered, handcuffed and her pants were pulled down exposing her bare buttocks. No one should be treated like that in this city, in this country, or anywhere else in the world,” Thomson said.