Dallas ICE Office Shooting: A Look at Similar Attacks on Other Facilities

By Harrison Mantas

Source Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas is the latest in a string of attacks directed at the agency in the past few months.

Two people, including the gunman, have been pronounced dead as of Wednesday morning.

The agency previously said there has been a 1,000% increase in attacks on its officers in a Sept. 22 press release.

The agency has faced criticism for allowing its officers to obscure their faces and hide identifying information during arrests. However, Department of Homeland Security officials have argued these measures are needed to protect officers from so-called doxing attacks, where personal information is used to threaten officers and their families.

Here are where other attacks on ICE and Border Patrol facilities have occurred.

Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas

On July 4, a group of about 10 to 12 people began shooting fireworks outside an ICE detention facility in Alvarado.

Two ICE officers came out of the facility to talk to the group, and an officer from the Alvarado Police Department was called to the scene.

That was when shots rang out from a nearby tree line with one hitting the police officer in the neck. He was taken to a nearby hospital, treated for his wounds and released shortly after.

Federal authorities have arrested 17 people in connection with the July 4 shooting. Authorities have called it a coordinated ambush, but the defendants say they were participating in a so-called “noise protest” and did not intend to shoot anybody.

Fourteen of the defendants were arraigned in federal court Monday and Tuesday, with a handful scheduled to have preliminary hearings on Sept. 30.

Bomb threat at same Dallas ICE facility

About a month before Wednesday’s shooting outside the Dallas ICE facility, officials arrested 36-year-old Bratton Dean Wilkinson for allegedly walking up to the facility and making a bomb threat.

At around 6:37 p.m. on Aug. 25, Wilkinson allegedly walked up to the entrance of facility and claimed to have a bomb in his backpack, according to a DHS press release.

He allegedly showed a security officer what he claimed to be a detonator on his wrist. The facility immediately went into a shelter-in-place order, and Dallas police were called to the scene.

Shooting at Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas

The shooter was killed by law enforcement at the scene.

DHS officials blamed the attack on divisive rhetoric vilifying Border Patrol and ICE officials for doing their jobs.

Violence during ICE facility protest in Portland, Oregon

About 2,000 miles away in Portland, Oregon, another July 4 protest at an ICE facility resulted in violence.

Four people were arrested, and three were charged felony offenses of assaulting a federal officer, while the fourth was charged with misdemeanor offense of depredation of government property, according to a Department of Justice press release.

One of the defendants was accused of kicking and tripping an ICE official to stop him from chasing a group that had drawn graffiti on the building.

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