While detained by ICE, Brooklyn Park women help agent experiencing seizure
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When two Brooklyn Park women were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they wound up helping an agent through a medical emergency. Their arrest, captured on a Brooklyn Park police dash camera, also gives an inside look at how local police interact with ICE.
Tippy Amundson and Heather Zemian have been observing their neighborhood together, watching for ICE agents as kids get off the bus from school. It started when Amundson’s middle school neighbor had called her and asked if her home would be a safe place to run if ICE was following him. He was worried that if he ran to his own home, his parents could get detained.
“All of the kids in our neighborhood and the community are our kids,” said Amundson. “We have a responsibility to just make sure they're safe at the bare minimum. And that's what we were doing on Thursday.”
When local police encounter ICE
On Jan. 22, Amundson and Zemian came upon an ICE agent at an apartment complex. They honked their car horn to alert the neighbors of ICE’s presence. Immediately, the pair says they were swarmed by agents and asked to leave. The pair said they left the immediate vicinity but returned shortly after, when a Brooklyn Park police officer arrived.
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In Brooklyn Park police dash cam video shared with MPR News, the police officer pulls up to the scene and spots the ICE agent.
“We have ICE here. I think they’re waiting for him to get out of the garage,” the officer is heard on video saying. The officer then backs up, distancing herself from where the ICE agent is waiting.
Ninety seconds later, Amundson and Zemian pull up next to the officer, wondering why the officer is on scene. Because the pair were not the original 911 callers, the officer declines to share why she was called to the scene. Amundson asks if ICE called the police on them.
“Not you, you’re not in trouble,” the officer is heard saying on the video.
Amundson then poses a question many in the public have had, “If ICE shows up to my house because my neighbors are inside my house, can I call you?”
The agent explains that federal law enforcement is separate from local law enforcement. On the city of Brooklyn Park’s website, an immigration FAQ says to call 911 if a resident is witnessing illegal activity or to check if a warrant is valid.
As Amundson and Zemian are chatting with the officer, an ICE agent vehicle approaches them and flashes its headlights. The women take it as a signal to move out of the way. But when they pull forward to do so, they’re boxed in, ordered out of their vehicles and arrested.
In a statement DHS said that “despite warnings the women, again attempted to obstruct the operation, disobeyed law enforcement commands and ignored warnings, resulting in their arrest.”
But dash cam video shows the women attempting to leave the scene when the ICE vehicle shows up.
The Brooklyn Park officer pulls backward when ICE arrives, but stays on scene.
When speaking to a second responding local officer she says, “I didn't know what to do. I was gonna leave because, you know, but then there's also our community.”
Brooklyn Park police declined an interview but shared in a statement that officers were present as ICE agents conducted a vehicle stop and an arrest of the occupants, but they were uninvolved in the arrest.
A medical emergency
Amundson and Zemian had been detained in the ICE vehicle for just a few minutes when the medical emergency happened.
The ICE agent in the front passenger seat had said he wasn’t feeling well and then began to convulse.
Amundson and Zemian immediately recognized there was an emergency.
“It was very apparent that we were the only ones in the car who really had any medical training at all,” said Amundson, who is a kindergarten teacher and had received some medical training when she served on her school’s emergency council. According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents are trained in basic CPR.
Amundson said she urged the ICE agent to pull over and call 911, the two then jumped into action. They say they were both taken out of their handcuffs. Amundson went to the passenger side and put the agent in the recovery position.
“And in order for me to do that, I had to take his weapon that was on his hip and move it around to the front of his body,” said Amundson. “Nobody stopped me from touching that weapon at all.”
Amundson said she asked him his name and told him he was going to be okay and that she was going to stay with him until EMS arrived. Zemian rustled through the back of the ICE vehicle and found something she could put under the agent’s head to prop it up.
Amundson and Zemian look back on the situation shocked by the amount of freedom they had.
“I'm standing there with an incapacitated ICE agent, his service weapon, an empty running vehicle, and they are concerned about emptying out another vehicle to put us in, to take us to Whipple,” Amundson said.
According to DHS, the two women “lied to law enforcement stating they were nurses.” The agency also says that the women remained secured in the vehicle and that agents pulled over to render assistance.
Amundson and Zemian were transported to the Whipple Federal Building in another vehicle when EMS arrived. The women asked if they could call their attorney. The ICE agents told them they weren’t sure if they would be allowed to. But then they reconsidered.
“He kind of sat for a second on that, and then he said, ‘Because you saved one of our guys, we'll let you have one phone call,’” according to Amundson.
When Zemian reflects on what happened, she draws a comparison to the compassion they showed to the ICE agent experiencing a seizure, that she feels ICE agent isn’t showing to the public.
“We would like everyone to look at everyone as humans, and that's not what we're seeing with a lot of people.”
The women were issued a citation by DHS.
Since the arrest, Zemian said she has continued to patrol her neighborhood, but Amundson now stays closer to home on her street. She’s providing support to her middle school neighbor, who now isn’t getting on the bus anymore and opting for e-learning.
