🔗 Share this article Windy City TV Reporter's Detainment in Immigration Raid Called 'Disturbing and Terrifying', Attorneys Assert Legal representatives representing a journalist from Chicago's local TV network who was briefly held by federal agents last week characterize the event as "something that should alarm and horrify each individual in this nation". Details of the Arrest Debbie Brockman, a US citizen and WGN employee, was taken into custody on the weekend by federal agents during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement action in a North Side Chicago area. Footage from the scene show the producer being forced to the ground by two agents before she is restrained and placed in a van. At the time, a government spokesperson claimed that Brockman "hurled items at an official vehicle" and was "placed under arrest for attacking an officer". Later on Friday, the television station announced that Brockman had been released from federal custody and that no charges had been pressed against her. Legal Team's Reaction In a statement released by attorneys acting for the journalist on Tuesday, her legal team challenged the government's account. They stated they "strongly refute any allegation that she assaulted anyone" and that "Brockman was the one who was physically attacked by federal agents on her way to work" on the date in question. Her lawyers say that at the time of the detainment, the journalist was "not acting in any official role as an staff member for WGN" but that she was just "walking to the bus stop as part of her morning commute when she was confronted by Border Patrol agents. "Brockman, who is a American citizen native to the US, was violently detained on Foster Avenue," the statement continues. "As this occurred, individuals on the street began filming the event and inquired Ms Brockman her name." The statement says that she informed the bystanders her name and that she was employed at WGN, in the hopes that "someone would inform her workplace so colleagues would know that she would not be coming at work that day", her attorneys said. Aftermath and Legal Action According to her lawyers, the journalist was kept in federal custody for about several hours before being freed. "She has not been charged with any offenses and she intends to pursue all legal avenues available to her to vindicate her rights and hold the federal authorities accountable for their conduct," the statement adds. "One attorney, a legal representative, commented in the statement: "If equipped, masked, government officers are snatching US citizens off the street as they walk to work and placing them in unmarked vehicles, you can only conceive what these officers must be prepared to do to our immigrant neighbors and individuals who choose to protest against them." "The journalist was forced down, struck, restrained, and her trousers were lowered exposing her bare buttocks," Thomson stated. "No one should be handled like that in this metropolis, in this country or anywhere else in the globe." ICE, the federal agency, and the border agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment from news outlets.