A CNN reporter was startled during a live broadcast as a clash between federal officers and protesters erupted outside a Texas immigration detention facility.
CNN's Ed Lavandera was outside the ICE facility in Dilley, Texas, where a group of demonstrators demanded the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and his father, who were taken last week in Minneapolis to the facility. The ICE detention location was under lockdown following demonstrations over the weekend from detainees who were responding to the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and ICE's brutal tactics, while several lawmakers attempted to speak with detained immigrants.
The visit with Texas Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett had been underway for more than three hours underway when a clash broke out among the large group.
"We have not gotten any updates from the facility," Lavandera said. "Meanwhile, outside of the facility, the attention kind of escalating here as a large group of protesters have marched from Dilley into the area and now state troopers in riot gear have been brought in to start pushing the crowd back."
The group had apparently begun to disperse, with many people walking back toward town when the clash happened.
"But here, on the edge in the entrance into this detention facility, there are still a smaller group of hard-line protesters who are there, probably about 30 or 40 feet into the property here belonging to the detention facility," Lavandera said. "And authorities have been telling them for probably the better part of an hour to scoot back in. Just a little while ago, a group of - well, now it's starting to get tense. We'll let you watch this scene unfold here as we're kind of watching it unfold as well. But state troopers starting to push back."
A loud noise rang out and some type of device was shot into the crowd. People at the scene appeared to have been hit with some type of tear gas and were treating protesters at the location.
"I saw some - Oh! There we go," Lavandera said, as someone yells an obscenity. "Oh, that landed on top of a photographer's camera. And I could see the photographer jump back there. So they have I see a number of troopers have taken a few people into custody down there on the ground, but the vast majority of them have been pushed back all of this literally unfolding here as these troopers in in the riot gear, the state troopers were the ones that were brought in, on a school bus just a short while ago."