Police arrest of robbery suspect mischaracterized online as ICE brutality
- Published on February 4, 2026 at 18:49
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
As US lawmakers negotiate over the aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that have led to the death of two American citizens in the state of Minnesota, detractors of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency are circulating a video claimed to show its agents beating an unarmed migrant teenager. But vests on the officers in the footage place them with the Anaheim Police Department, which said in a statement that they were arresting a juvenile robbery suspect who was on the run and believed to have participated in a massive jewelry store heist days earlier.
"Footage shows an ICE agent pistol whipping a 16-year-old boy in the face with a handgun as the teen appears to be raising his hands and unarmed," says a January 31, 2026 post sharing the video on X. "Other officers violently force him to the ground, kneeling on his back into a curb."
Similar posts spread across platforms including Instagram and Facebook, where the liberal advocacy group Occupy Democrats shared screenshots of the clip alongside a call to defund the agency tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump's mass deportation policies.
"BREAKING: Shocking video shows ICE agent pistol-whipping an unarmed teenager with his hands up!" the organization wrote in a post to its more than 11 million followers. "Another day, another heinous display of violence from Trump’s Gestapo goons. This incident took place in Lynwood, California."
The posts come as protests and public anger have flared after federal immigration agents shot and killed two US citizens in Minneapolis in January. Trump surged the heavily armed and masked personnel to the Democrat-led city against the wishes of local officials who said they were igniting tensions.
On February 3, Trump signed a spending bill to end a four-day partial government shutdown sparked by Democratic opposition to funding for ICE's parent agency, leaving lawmakers with two weeks to negotiate a full-year funding bill for the department.
But the clip out of California is unrelated, Anaheim Police Department public information officer Matt Sutter told AFP (archived here).
"This was a robbery suspect and had nothing to do with immigration," Sutter said in a February 3 email, adding that the law enforcement in the footage were Anaheim police and that no federal agents were involved. In the video, the words "Anaheim Police" are legible on the back of one officer's vest.
In a statement Sutter shared with AFP, the department reiterated that "the incident did not involve any federal agents and was not related to immigration enforcement."
The statement said the arrest took place on January 30 in Lynwood, California and involved a 17-year-old South Gate resident identified as "the ninth suspect wanted in connection with a jewelry store 'smash-and-grab' robbery that occurred on January 23, 2026, in Anaheim."
The suspect allegedly fled his vehicle on foot, running into an occupied home before attempting to carjack two cars, one of which is seen in the video of his arrest.
The department said the use of force would be reviewed and that the suspect had been transported to a hospital before he was later booked.
According to an earlier release from the Orange County District Attorney's office, seven men and one other juvenile were previously arrested for using a stolen vehicle to ram into a jewelry store and smashing open display cases, resulting in more than $800,000 in damage and stolen merchandise (archived here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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