Surveillance video shows federal agents arresting 2 inside Marion County Courthouse
Newly-released surveillance video from inside the Marion County Courthouse shows plainclothes federal agents take a man to the ground in the fifth floor hallway during an civil immigration arrest on Thursday, March 26.
Sheriff Nick Hunter ordered the footage released Friday, April 3, in response to requests from multiple media outlets, including Salem Reporter.
The footage sheds more light on what are likely the first immigration arrests made inside the building. Federal agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security arrested two people inside the downtown Salem courthouse before 9 a.m., prompting community questions about the sheriff’s office involvement. The agency provides security for the courthouse.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office posted the footage on YouTube. It shows nearly 12 minutes of footage from the hallway, including both the initial encounters and arrests. Deputies are shown observing the first arrest from a close distance, with one escorting federal agents and the man arrested into an elevator.
Courthouse security camera footage is rarely released to the media or public, Sgt. Jeremy Schwab, sheriff’s office spokesman, previously told Salem Reporter.
The first arrest shown on video was based on an administrative warrant signed by a federal agent, not a judge. Oregon law prohibits state and local government agencies, including law enforcement, from assisting in those arrests, and the sheriff’s office previously said its deputies did not assist in the arrest.
State law also prohibits civil arrests, such as immigration arrests, inside court facilities.
The footage shows plainclothes agents and Marion County deputies surrounding a man in the hallway. A deputy leaned over the arrestee shortly after federal agents took the man to the ground, and others stood nearby.
The sheriff’s office has previously declined to identify the man arrested, and federal officials have not responded to multiple requests from Salem Reporter to identify him. The agency said Friday the man was appearing in court on charges of cocaine possession and driving under the influence of intoxicants.
The footage shows a woman in a sweatshirt with no visible identification waiting in a chair outside of the courtroom. The man who is later arrested is sitting in a chair nearby.
The man speaks with two men in suits before shaking hands with one of them.
As he exits the area outside the courtroom to walk toward the elevators, the woman stands up to follow him.
Seconds later, she appears to grab the man as two other men approach them, converging from two different directions. One is wearing a black gaiter mask and a baseball cap obscuring his identity, and the other is wearing a camo sweatshirt.
In a previous statement, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office identified the woman and two men as agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Two sheriff’s deputies then walk over, and stand nearby as the federal agents surround the man.
It is unclear whether the man begins to resist arrest before all three agents begin to wrestle him to the ground.
“JSU deputies were advised the subject had previously been uncooperative and was likely to resist arrest,” the sheriff’s office statement last week said, using an acronym for its Judicial Security Unit. “Deputies witnessed the suspect resist arrest as DHS agents attempted to take him into custody. DHS agents were able to restrain the subject without JSU intervention.”
The day after the arrest, Salem Reporter formally requested reports filed by deputies regarding the arrests, along with records showing that the unnamed man was “previously uncooperative” and could resist arrest. Matt Wilkinson, the operations division commander, responded Thursday, April 2, with several text messages from Hunter about media coverage related to the incident and a copy of the warrant justifying the second arrest, indicating there were no other records.
Footage shows two agents restraining the man as the third stands back before approaching the man. A sheriff’s deputy blocks the man from view, but a male agent appears to grab the man before the agents tackle him to the ground.
At one point, a deputy appears to lean directly over the man, and it is unclear whether he touches him.
The woman agent pulls out handcuffs, while the agent in the gaiter mask kneels on the man’s legs. The view of the man’s upper body is obscured by sheriff’s deputies.
A sheriff’s deputy picks up a piece of paper that was dropped during the arrest, and hands it to the woman agent.
A deputy then accompanies the agents and the man to an elevator, where they wait for around 2 minutes. As the man waits for the elevator, he can be seen wearing handcuffs.
The agents appear to speak with the deputy. At one point, the woman puts her hood on, and pulls the drawstrings tight around her face. She then takes the man’s belongings, which appear to include his phone and wallet, out of his pockets.
She appears to scroll on the man’s phone before putting his belongings in her sweatshirt pockets.
When the elevator opens, all three agents, the man, and the deputy enter the elevator.
The second arrest shown on video is of a 39-year-old Salem man, Daniel Lopez-Mojica, who was wanted on a federal charge in Portland U.S. District Court of illegally re-entering the country after previously being deported. The sheriff’s office assisted with his arrest.
Around a minute after the unidentified man is taken into the elevator, a deputy who oversaw the first arrest reappears on the fifth floor to approach a man outside of the same courtroom, the video shows.
The deputy is joined by a second man, and together they wait for several minutes before escorting another man, identified by the sheriff’s office as Lopez-Mojica, who had been sitting nearby, down a hallway, apparently without incident.
The footage matches the sheriff’s office account of the arrest of Lopez-Mojica, which was authorized by a warrant signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Youlee Yim You. Oregon’s sanctuary law allows law enforcement to assist with immigration-related arrests ordered by a judge.
Lopez-Mojica is currently being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show.
Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.
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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. She previously worked as the business reporter at The Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A University of Oregon grad, she has also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.
Madeleine Moore joined Salem Reporter in 2024 and reports on a variety of topics including public safety, addiction, treatment and the criminal justice system. She came to Salem after graduating from the University of Oregon in June 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
3 Comments
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The agent in the camo jacket had a very strange hold on the man in custody.
That is a hold I have not seen used before by prison, state hospital or police agency staff.
(Risk of injury to person)
I wonder what the deputy said to the federal agent before she pulled up her hood like a child trying to hide. I am also a little stunned that Marion County Sheriff’s Office thinks that concierge service (“let me get that elevator for you, and by the way we have security cameras, you might want to pull up your hood”) for federal agents arresting someone on an administrative warrant doesn’t count as providing assistance. I don’t expect the Marion County DA to be interested in prosecuting but it would be interesting to hear what she and the state AG would say about the question.
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