An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation took place in Morristown, New Jersey, on Thursday, Oct. 29, and video from a resident who said she was shoved at the scene has put the police response under scrutiny. At the Town Council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 10, some residents criticized the police, saying they appeared to assist the operation, while the mayor and police countered that officers were clearing a crowd to protect residents. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied the claim of assault.
Controversy is growing over the response of Morristown police officers who went to the scene of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in Morristown, New Jersey, on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 29. According to Morristown Green, the issue led to public questioning at the Town Council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The mayor and police leadership said officers did not help ICE and only cleared the crowd for public safety.
The controversy began with a video shot by Alexis Mascitti Brown. Brown, 44, a retired pediatrician, was on her way to skate at Mennen Arena that morning when she saw ICE activity on Abbett Avenue, stopped her car and began filming from the sidewalk. She claimed that a federal agent in tactical gear shoved her and that Morristown police watched it happen. At the Nov. 10 council meeting, she said she would have moved if officers had simply given a verbal warning, and asked what she and other residents should do to stay safe. Brown was not injured and has not filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Residents who appeared before the council criticized the police "crowd control" as looking like cooperation with ICE. New Jersey state law prohibits assisting ICE in most situations. One resident said that, absent a warrant, ICE should manage crowds with its own personnel, while another speaker asked whether officers had demanded a court warrant or identification from the agents. Some speakers were cut off by the council's three-minute limit per person.
Mayor Tim Dougherty dismissed the claim of cooperation as untrue. He explained that police responded at the request of a Morris County communications dispatcher. Police Director Darnell Richardson said the department had no advance knowledge that ICE was coming and that the officers at the scene did not see an assault. Public Safety Director Michael Corcoran Jr. said that because ICE appears without prior notice, police have no choice but to respond to the situation on the ground, and that the department will follow the state's Immigrant Trust Act.
DHS declined to identify the agent and denied the assault claim as "patently false." In a statement issued right after the incident, it said the agency was carrying out a targeted operation to arrest a criminal suspect from El Salvador who is an MS-13 gang member, and claimed that a protester failed to comply with the agents' lawful instructions. Mayor Dougherty said ICE operations have occurred in Morristown several times this year and predicted they will intensify, citing President Trump's promotion of Stephen Miller to chief of staff after this month's midterm elections. The mayor said he hopes ICE does not come to Morristown but that the town can do only so much.