A morning commute in Hyattsville turned into a full blown spectacle when an ICE agent dropped his pistol during a chaotic street arrest, then briefly pointed his gun toward a the crowd of onlookers, as seen on the video here. The clip, filmed on Wednesday around rush hour by local photographer Raphi Talisman, captures a tense struggle in the middle of a busy intersection as drivers lean on their horns and pedestrians shout at agents to put the weapon away.
The video opens with two ICE officers wrestling a man to the pavement near Hamilton Street and Queens Chapel Road. One agent’s handgun slips to the ground, he scrambles, snatches it back up, and in the same motion appears to point it toward the crowd for a brief moment before keeping it in a low ready position. Bystanders can be heard yelling, “Put the gun down,” while others demand to know why the man is being detained. The photographer later said he had just dropped his child at school when traffic suddenly stopped, so he stepped out and started recording.
The detainee, switching between English and Spanish, pleads with officers, yelling “Help!” and shouting that he loves America. At one point, he says he was born in D.C., while an agent shouts back that the man is a criminal. The scene grows louder as more cars stack up and a chorus of beeping cars mixed with the officers’ commands. Additional ICE personnel eventually arrive, help secure the man, and load him into a minivan, while the armed agent shouted at the crowd and asked whether anyone wanted to “take him home.”
What the video does not show is what started the stop, or what charges the man might face. ICE had not provided details about the arrest or the man’s status by publication time. That silence has fed criticism of the field tactics on display, especially the decision to conduct a hands on arrest in the middle of a live intersection as the morning rush built around them.
How the agent handled the gun is at the heart of the backlash. Even briefly pointing at the crowd is a major training red flag, instructors say, because pointing a firearm at anyone you do not intend to stop with deadly force violates basic safety rules and can escalate an already volatile scene. The videographer said afterward that things “could have gotten way out of control very quickly.”
Hyattsville is about seven miles from the White House, which helps explain how fast the clip spread across social media. The video touches on the argument about how immigration arrests are carried out in neighborhoods where families are getting kids to school and workers are trying to make it on time.
Local officials are already getting tagged. Talisman flagged the incident for elected leaders, including Senator Chris Van Hollen, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, and Representative Glenn Ivey. Whether that leads to a formal inquiry is an open question, but it increases pressure on ICE to explain the tactics, the gun handling, and the decision to stage an arrest in live traffic.
