ICE agent points gun at Virginia woman who shouted at them in video that conflicts with government’s narrative

By Emma Tucker, Jillian Sykes and Martin Goillandeau, CNN

(CNN) — A confrontation captured on video between a woman who shouted insults at Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducting immigration enforcement action in Northern Virginia escalated when one of the officers pointed a gun at her on Monday.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson described the woman in a statement as “an anti-ICE agitator” who drove her car “in circles around our ICE officers and then attempted to harm officers by weaponizing her vehicle against them—all in an attempt to help illegal aliens get away.”

The woman, Carolina Molina, is a licensed mental health therapist who was visiting immigration lawyers in Bailey’s Crossroads for her work when she saw ICE agents taking people into custody, she said at a news conference Wednesday.

Two Latino men were being handcuffed and escorted to an unmarked vehicle by the ICE agents, she told CNN affiliate WUSA in an interview. The encounter is not visible on camera.

“So, I rolled down my window and was like, ‘you guys are messed up,’” Molina told WUSA.

Molina said that she saw more agents as she continued to the attorney’s office.

Video from her dashboard camera shows she yelled, “You’re a hoe” and “you’re f**ked up” to the agents.

Molina said she turned her car around to avoid drawing attention to the attorney’s office “where possibly immigrants could be,” according to an Instagram post in which she shared the dash cam footage.

“I decided to pull into a parking spot, pull out, and just go on my merry way when I got blocked in by one of the ICE agents,” she said at the Wednesday news conference.

Masked federal agents pulled up in a gray SUV in front of her and jumped out, with one shouting “are you following us?” and saying she “almost ran us over,” according to the dashcam footage and video Molina shot on her phone.

One of the agents threatened to arrest Molina and pointed a gun in her direction. The gun was out for much of the encounter, according to the video footage.

“I’m a legal citizen,” Molina responded, adding, “Run you over when? I got recording! I got dashcam! I got dashcam! That’s a lie … I never tried to run you over.”

Molina said Wednesday she felt the “the situation changed” once she started recording on her cell phone, and the agent claimed she was trying to run them over.

“That is not the case. I was actually trying to leave,” Molina said during the news conference.

The agents eventually returned to their vehicles and drove away.

“I think it’s messed up. I don’t think it’s fair that they can sit there and block somebody in and point a gun at your head … I think they should be investigated,” Molina said, adding any body camera footage should be released.

DHS said in the statement to CNN that the agents were conducting an “operation targeting criminal illegal aliens, whose crimes included a hit and run and drug trafficking, and illegal aliens with final orders of removal.”

The agency also said the woman was trying “to help illegal aliens get away” and “could face criminal prosecution as a result of her actions.”

“Our officers are experiencing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats. When faced with dangerous circumstances, DHS law enforcement used their training to protect themselves, their fellow officers, and the public,” the DHS spokesperson said in the statement.

The confrontation is the latest incident in recent months in which DHS has made claims that were later called into question by video, other evidence, local police and/or judges. Its legal cases against people it accused of targeting federal agents have repeatedly fallen apart.

Molina denied DHS’ account of the incident.

“One thing I’m not is a liar,” she wrote in the caption of an Instagram post sharing her dash cam video.

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, whose district includes Bailey’s Crossroads, just outside Arlington, said he has been in touch with Molina, whom he described as “a North Virginia native and a mother,” in a post on X.

He called for answers and accountability about the incident.

“While I am relieved that she is safe, the habitual dishonesty and dangerous and unjustified escalation seen in this video matches what we have seen from ICE agents across the country. This kind of misconduct and threat of force against members of our communities cannot be tolerated,” Beyer said on X.

Molina said she couldn’t believe the interaction escalated to that point and it reminded her of Renee Good, a 37-year-old US citizen who was killed when an ICE agent shot into her vehicle during an encounter in Minneapolis earlier this year.

“I think my life was in danger at that point,” Molina said when asked by CNN what she thought would have happened had she not been filming the encounter. “It wasn’t until after I was like, ‘This is the whole Renee Good situation again.’”

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CNN’s David Williams, Logan Schiciano and Aaron Eggleston contributed to this report.