Dramatic video shows a man being taken into U.S. Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in D.C. as he pleads for help. This is just the latest traffic stop by D.C. police that led to an immigration detention. D.C.’s mayor has gone on record saying she doesn’t want D.C. police taking part in immigration enforcement.
But this new video came to light just days after a D.C. police lieutenant made public comments about the relationship between local police and federal agents.
What video from Saturday night shows
The man was stopped Saturday night at the intersection of Minnesota Avenue and Naylor Road SE. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told News4 officers pulled him over for riding his moped on the sidewalk.
Police say he was issued a ticket and then turned over to federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The agents took him into custody for what police say was a civil immigration matter.
The man can be seen resisting and is heard screaming for help as masked federal agents, including from ICE, the FBI and the DHS, force him into an unmarked car.
In the video, the man screams that he’s done nothing wrong, saying they’re hurting him and pleading for a friend to record what’s happening.
Meanwhile, agents keep telling him to calm down and get in the car.
“No, I did nothing!” he says. “… They are hurting me! Help!”
An MPD spokesperson told us in a statement: “On Saturday, November 8, 2025, MPD members and federal partners working together in the 2200 block of Minnesota Avenue, Southwest, conducted a traffic stop on a moped illegally operating on the sidewalk. As MPD members issued the moped operator a Notice of Infraction (NOI), Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agents assigned to this task force group conducted a search into the subject’s immigration status. After MPD issued the moped operator the NOI, HSI agents took the man into custody pursuant to a civil immigration matter.”
Tom Donohue recorded the incident.
“I was troubled by it. This dramatic takedown of this young man, you start thinking about what his next move will be, where will he go, whether he’ll see family ever again,” Donohue said.
Donohue is an advisory neighborhood commissioner who represents the neighborhood where it happened.
What a police lieutenant said about relationship between local police and federal agents
Just four days prior, at a monthly Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) meeting, Donohue asked MPD Lt. Kerron Roberts about incidents like this involving D.C. police and federal agents.
Roberts gave one of the most detailed descriptions the public has heard from MPD since the federal surge began, telling the ANC that ICE agents are at times part of the D.C. Safe task force, which was launched by an executive order by President Donald Trump.
“It’s called the D.C. Safe initiative, in which we have the crime suppression team, which is a marked MPD unit,” Roberts said. “We’re in full uniform. Marked MPD cruisers along with federal partners to include, but not limited to Homeland security, ATS, DEA, FBI. We work with ICE, all different federal partners. And we go out in teams, about, I probably say roughly about 10 to 15 teams.”
The chair of the ANC quickly noted that Roberts’ description was different from what the mayor and police chief had been telling the public.
“Thank you for admitting that MPD is still working with ICE because the mayor has said several times that MPD is not working with ICE and you just confirmed that,” Commissioner Jamila White, chair, ANC 8A, said.
Roberts tried to clarify his remarks.
“What I’m saying is that we work with a bunch of different, we have, I’ve been doing this for maybe four months now,” he said. “So at some point in time, the ICE units are working, but we don’t work together in conjunction …. We’re not working with ICE specifically. ICE is one of the federal agencies that works with the DC safe initiative at one point.”
As Roberts tried to explain, MPD Capt. Rachel Pulliam interrupted.
Pulliam did not dispute what Roberts had said about MPD and ICE but explained how there could be confusion because of the rampant turnover in federal agents on the task force.
“We are seeing, as Lt. Roberts said, new federal partners in every two weeks. And so we are still having to almost train them in the ways that we conduct ourselves in D.C. and how we police our communities,” Pulliam said.
On a Zoom interview, Donohue told us: “I think the community is concerned just as much as I am. I’ll be honest with you, the last couple days I’ve thought nothing but a lot about him, wondering where he is.”
One of the last things the man was heard saying before being taken away was: “Friend, please tell my family.”
Police Chief Pamela Smith and Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment on the lieutenant’s and captain’s comments at the community meeting. However, in the past Bowser has publicly stated she does not want MPD assisting in immigration enforcement.
News4 has reached out to ICE and Homeland Security. We are waiting for a reply.
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