US Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcefully removed from a press conference in Los Angeles Thursday and coerced to the ground after attempting to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.
Padilla, California’s first Latino elected to the US Senate, interrupted Noem as she was giving remarks in the Los Angeles FBI headquarters on the administration’s response to the protests in that city against Noem’s agency and its immigration-enforcement efforts. The senator had been in the federal building for a separate briefing when he learned of the press conference.
Padilla was removed from the room, ordered to the ground by law enforcement and placed in handcuffs during the rapidly unfolding incident.
The incident comes amid a heightened atmosphere in Los Angeles, which has been roiled with protests against President Donald Trump’s federal immigration raids. While the senator was ultimately not arrested, his ejection from the room by law enforcement follows the arrests of other public officials, who the administration has accused of impeding its enforcement of immigration laws.
“I was there peacefully,” Padilla said in his first public remarks shortly following the incident. “At one point I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room. I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed. I was not arrested. I was not detained.”
He added: “If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine, what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.”
Noem said the US Secret Service “thought he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately.”
“I wish that he would have reached out and identified himself and let us know who he was and that he wanted to talk. His approach was something that I don’t think was appropriate,” she said.
Video of the incident shows the senator identifying himself as officers grabbed him and pushed him toward a door.
The pair, Noem said, later met and had a “great conversation.” “Sat down, talked for 10, 15 minutes about operations in LA, some activities of the Department of Homeland Security, and so I thought it was very productive,” she told reporters.
Following the incident, Padilla urged people protesting the Trump administration to do so peacefully. In the coming days, thousands of protests are planned across the country as Trump plans to host a military parade in Washington, DC, this weekend.
“There is a lot of concern, there is a lot of tension, there is a lot of anxiety, and a lot of people are beginning to make plans for what they or may or may not do come this Saturday,” the senator said.
He added: “I encourage everybody to please peacefully protest – just like I was calmly and peacefully listening in that press conference.”
No charges are currently planned against the senator, two law enforcement sources told CNN.
