PORTLAND – Two protesters were apprehended at the back gate of Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Jan. 25. The incident happened at 8:54 p.m. after a seemingly peaceful protest, according to witnesses.
Leilani Payne, a pro-Palestine activist, said, “I was sitting down right there (gesturing to the back gate grass patch) and they ran out while my back was turned, and they grabbed me, put me in a chokehold, dragged me up onto the sidewalk, and then (the ICE agent who grabbed her) said, ‘No not this one’ and let me go.”
Payne’s image went global last year after a video showed her being pepper sprayed as a peaceful protester. The pepper spray was held not even 5 inches from the face of the 19-year-old.
The other protester, who was detained, also shared her story.
“I said, ‘What is the right to tackle me?’ I don’t even know how many men were on me. There was one guy who kept trying to argue with me back and forth and I literally told him to ‘Shut the f*ck up,’ ” said the woman who is barely 5-foot-4 and has pigtails.
She also showed cuts and bruises left from where the officers dragged her. She was released almost 30 minutes later.
From the video footage – which is available on Instagram and Tik Tok via @ghxxstgirll – neither of the women resisted arrest. Four different people were released after being detained that night.
That same night, rounds of ammunition from tear gas, pepper spray balls and HC gas, known as hexachloroethane, was also used multiple times throughout the night from around 9-10 p.m.
The manufacturer of HC gas describes it as a “Military-Style Maximum Smoke Grenade comes from the Defense Technology® #3 smoke grenade. It is a slow burning, high volume, continuous discharge grenade designed for outdoor use in crowd management situations. Emits grey-white smoke only for approximately 1.5 to 2 minutes.”
California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (also known as Proposition 65), includes this warning: “This product can expose you to chemicals including Lead Salts, Methylene Chloride and Hexavalent Chromium, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and Lead Salts, which are known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.”
Citations and sources:
- Leia being pepper-sprayed (from The Oregonian):
- Leia’s Instagram (with more protest footage):
- Interviews:
- Protest Footage:
—
Originally posted February 3, 2026 at https://ghxxstgirlls.blogspot.com/2026/02/peaceful-protesters-put-into-chokehold.html. Reposted with author’s permission.
