Photographer shot with pepper balls at Illinois ICE facility, camera damaged

Freelance photojournalist Dave Decker was shot in the lower legs with pepper balls by federal officers and one of his camera lenses damaged while covering protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, on Sept. 27, 2025.

Decker told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was on assignment for Zuma Press to cover protests at the facility, where detainees are being held and processed ahead of deportation. While covering protests the day before, he was shot with pepper balls at least four times.

Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security following the aggressive response to that protest, Block Club Chicago reported, accusing ICE officials of “making war” on her community. Thompson asked that the agency stop “deploying chemical arms such as tear gas, pepper spray, etc. against American citizens, our residents, and our first responders.”

According to a Sept. 27 news release, the village of Broadview said that in retaliation for Thompson’s letter, “ICE agents this morning informed the Broadview Police Department that there will be ‘a sh*t show’ in Broadview today.”

“Let’s be clear. ICE is seeking to intimidate the Village of Broadview because we dared exercise our 1st Amendment constitutional rights calling for an end to their war on Broadview,” the statement continued. “We will not be intimidated.”

Decker told the Tracker he was covering protests again Sept. 27 and said the federal officers were especially aggressive. But he added that he felt targeted by the officers both days.

As officers advanced from a fenced entrance to the facility and into the assembled demonstration, Decker said they were aggressive: shoving people, throwing them to the ground and firing crowd-control munitions at anyone stepping into the street.

Decker, referring to a livestream broadcast by News2Share founder Ford Fischer, said, “Ford has it on video where they just pointed to me and said, ‘Get him.’ And they peppered my legs, just shot me, because I had my foot sitting off a curb.”

At 1:52 in the footage, a group of journalists can be seen filming from between two vehicles as federal officers advance through the street. One of the officers is then seen pointing to one of the journalists, and another officer then fires at least two pepper balls at the journalist, confirmed to be Decker.

Decker is then seen retreating from the street before resuming his coverage. He added that he was also shoved by an officer later that night, and has six welts all over his body from being shot both days.

He told the Tracker that at some point, a pepper ball also directly struck his camera, leaving a “massive imprint” on the lens and damaging one of the switches on it. “So I may have caught a stray pepper ball or they just aimed for my camera,” he said.

The strangest thing for him, Decker said, was individuals in DHS uniforms on the roof with cameras, filming as U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino walked detainees in and out of the processing facility.

“I think the whole point of that weekend — and why they went so hard on Saturday — is because they were doing a hype video, a recruitment video,” Decker speculated. “I feel like they’ve lowered the standards that they want for use of force based on the entertainment value they can add to the content they’re trying to create. And they just trolled the protest folks to get them close enough so that they could have their ‘shit show.’”

ICE did not respond to requests for comment. Bovino posted a video package of the Sept. 27 protest response on the social platform X two days later, set to Duckwrth and Shaboozey’s song “Start a Riot.”

“Wave your signs, chant your slogans, hurl your verbal insults, and exercise your First Amendment rights— we’ll protect that,” Bovino wrote. “Lay a finger on our agents, impede our mission, endanger those in our custody and we have a front row seat for you to our justice system.”