Incident details
- Updated on
- Date of incident
- September 30, 2025
- Targets
- Dean Moses (amNewYork)
- Assailant
- Law enforcement
- Was the journalist targeted?
- Yes
Assault
Federal agents push and pull amNewYork police bureau chief and photojournalist Dean Moses from a public elevator outside the immigration court in New York City on Sept. 30, 2025.
ICE officer states amNewYork journalist ‘interfered’ with arrest in September 2025 assault
A federal officer said in a May 12, 2026, sworn affidavit that amNewYork’s police bureau chief and resident photographer Dean Moses “interfered with effectuating” an arrest in a September incident in which the journalist was grabbed and shoved at a federal immigration court in New York, New York.
Footage captured by a journalist at the scene on Sept. 30, 2025, showed federal officers grabbing and shoving Moses out of an elevator and pushing freelance photojournalist Olga Fedorova to the floor and onto Anadolu Agency videographer L. Vural Elibol, who hit his head and was hospitalized.
Joseph Harrington, a supervisory detention and deportation officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was responding to an April 2026 amended complaint in a lawsuit alleging that ICE had obstructed observation efforts at the federal courthouse starting in mid-2025. He asserted that a reporter followed officers into the elevator as they escorted a detainee for further screening and processing, alleging that the reporter interfered with the arrest and resisted the officers.
“The officers asked the reporter to leave the elevator, but he resisted and the officers grabbed his shoulders and arms to escort him out of the elevator,” Harrington wrote, adding, “As the reporter was being escorted out of the elevator, an unknown journalist tripped on another individual and fell.”
“This incident was the result of the journalists’ interference with ICE officers performing their duties,” Harrington continued.
Neither the amended complaint nor the affidavit named Moses, but identifiable details such as him entering the elevator point to him being the reporter who “interfered;” similarly, details such as a head injury and hospitalization point to Elibol being the reporter who “tripped.”
The officer’s account of the incident — particularly his references to a journalist tripping — was disputed by at least one eyewitness that was present at the scene that day. Peter Melck Kuttel, detention coordinator for Father Fabian Arias’ Saint Peter’s Church, told amNewYork: “It’s not like he tripped. You don’t hear that crack of a head for someone who trips.” A cracking noise can be heard when Elibol falls to the ground in the video footage.
Former City Comptroller and congressional candidate Brad Lander, who was arrested in June 2025 by ICE at the courthouse, characterized Harrington’s statements as perjury.
“To lie so blatantly, to the court to put your name on a legal document and lie when there’s video and witnesses who all saw the truth,” Lander told amNewYork, adding, “it’s perjury, and I really believe it should be prosecuted.”
Dean Moses, police bureau chief and resident photographer for the daily newspaper amNewYork, was grabbed and shoved by multiple federal officers while reporting at the federal immigration court in New York, New York, on Sept. 30, 2025.
Multiple journalists have reported access issues, intimidation and threats when covering the court at Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been arresting asylum-seekers following their hearings there since May, part of President Donald Trump’s broader immigration crackdown.
Previously, on Sept. 18, independent journalist Michael Nigro was assaulted by a man he identified as a plainclothes ICE officer while reporting on a lawmaker-led protest at the court.
On Sept. 30, Moses followed officers into a public elevator at around 10:15 a.m. when it appeared they were going to arrest an individual inside, amNewYork reported.
“I walked into the elevator behind them, and they started screaming at me, ‘Get the f–k out,” Moses told the newspaper. “Then they pushed me, grabbed me by my arms, and started pulling me out of the elevator. I tried to hold on, but I got shoved out.”
Footage captured by a fellow journalist shows masked federal officers pulling Moses from the elevator. Another officer standing outside the elevator doors then shoves freelance photojournalist Olga Fedorova back, causing her and Anadolu Agency videographer L. Vural Elibol — who was standing behind her — to go crashing to the hallway floor.
Another journalist at the scene confirmed to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Elibol struck his head quite severely and was taken to a hospital for further monitoring and testing.
Moses, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, told amNewYork that tensions have been rising at the courthouse over the last several months.
“And it’s not just between ICE and the photographers. It’s between ICE, photographers and other staff members,” he said. “It’s also among the immigrants who go there. It’s reached such a boiling point, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.”
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately responded to requests for comment.
City Comptroller Brad Lander quickly condemned the assault, writing on the social platform X, “Another violent attack by an ICE officer on a civilian at 26 Federal Plaza—this time on a journalist, who had to be carried out on stretcher.
“Another attack on the First Amendment, our neighbors, and our democracy.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogs press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to [email protected].
