The videos are a bit blurry, but this is the relevant frame (the suspect is the guy on the ground in the shadows; not the ice agent to his left who has clearly drawn his gun):
https://i.imgur.com/CVUBDIT.jpegWhat is the thing in his hand which he had just pulled out from his belt/hip in the middle of a melee? It seems perfectly plausible to me that he had indeed tried to pull his gun. Without clear video evidence, all sides will stick to the narrative they want to believe in, though.
The bigger issue imho is how 6 grown-ass agents weren't able to bring a single person under control. The whole scene was messy and inept and reeks of a lack of proper training. Even if the suspect truly grabbed his gun and created a legitimate self-defense situation for the agents, this whole scene was still a major fuckup by ICE. It should never have even come to this to begin with.
Didn't he have a camera in his hands the entier time from the start. It looks like he tries to pocket his camera in his front jacket pocket presumably to free he other hand since he just got sprayed to the face. My natural reaction as well would be to get rid of what's in that hand to wither brace myself from smashing pavement or wipe my face. And for good reason he would want to protect that camera if that's what it was that he was holding at the start before he even ended up getting sprayed.
It most certainly appears to just be a straight up killing of an American citizen while 6 ice agents hold him down.
Oh yeah after watching a few more times he's definitely just pocketing his little GoPro or whatever was in that hand that he appeared to be filming with.
Edit : there's good photos of what he had. Cell phone, just couldn't tell in the blury video if it was a GoPro or cell but the clear photos show cell phone. Sure looks like he's trying to shove that in his front pocket which seems pretty natural when you're pepper sprayed in the face and being shoved into concrete.
This post was edited by SBD on Jan 24 2026 03:30pm