A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent briefly held at gunpoint a woman whom he claimed was following him, prompting a southern California police officer to intervene, authorities said.
The police department in Fullerton, a city in Orange county almost 30 miles (48km) from Los Angeles, said that on Sunday one of its officers had just finished taking an incarcerated person to a county jail when he saw two vehicles stopped in an intersection in Santa Ana.
The officer stopped when he saw a man exit one of the vehicles and point a firearm at the other driver, the agency said in a statement. He did not initially know the identity of the armed man, who was dressed in plain clothes and soon provided credentials showing he was an ICE agent.
Video of the incident surfaced online appearing to show the police officer “assisting” the ICE agent, and the department sought to clarify its role in a press release. In footage of the incident, a man in sunglasses and a green shirt can be seen standing in the middle of an intersection, pointing a gun at a driver when an officer pulls up.
“What are you doing?” the woman being held at gunpoint asked in the video. “Are you for real right now? And now these cops are helping them … I’m just driving.”
The agent said the woman had been following and filming him, the department said, and the officer informed him he could not assist if no crime had been committed. The woman soon left, followed by the officer, according to the statement.