A recently surfaced video shows a Chicago-area minister being shot in the head with a projectile while he protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, drawing yet more condemnation of President Donald Trump’s violent federal raids of communities across the U.S.
David Black, a Presbyterian pastor, was praying amid a protest last month in Broadview, a Chicago neighborhood that houses an ICE processing facility. He spoke at a group of masked, armed ICE agents who were looking down at protesters from the roof.
“I invited them to repentance,” Black told Religion News Service.
The video shows one agent shooting a projectile at Black’s head, seemingly without warning. The pepper ball — a chemical agent that causes effects similar to pepper spray on impact — hits with a puff of smoke. Black collapses to his knees, coughing and holding the spot where he was hit.
Other protesters rushed to help him, and agents apparently kept on firing, according to Religion News Service.
“We could hear them laughing,” said the minister. He said he still suffers from respiratory issues, despite the incident having happened weeks ago.
Black is a regular protester at the ICE facility, noted organizer and Truthout writer and podcaster Kelly Hayes, who originally took the video last month. The footage resurfaced this week and circulated on social media.
“I had only been at the protest for a few minutes on September 19” when Black was hit, Hayes said. “When I arrived, he was standing on the sidewalk, arms outstretched, speaking to agents positioned on the roof. He was appealing to their humanity — calling them toward conscience and redemption.”
Black is listed as a plaintiff along with journalists and other faith leaders in a lawsuit filed this week against the Trump administration. The lawsuit says that the administration violated demonstrators’ and journalists’ constitutional rights in their treatment of those protesting and seeking to document the protests.
The video circulated social media this week, and was widely condemned. “Any elected Democrat who doesn’t support abolishing ICE should hang their heads in shame and should be immediately primaried. This is rogue agency/fascist stuff from ICE/CBP/DHS agents,” said Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan.
Black is one of numerous faith leaders, including Christian and Jewish figures, who have been arrested amid ICE protests. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also swept up Muslim leaders, like Dallas community leader Marwan Marouf and Ayman Soliman, accusing them of terrorism, often with little to no evidence.
This is despite DHS creating numerous posts on social media using Christianity and the Bible to supposedly justify and promote their violent raids of U.S. communities.
ICE agents’ raid on Chicago has been horrific. Last month, hundreds of ICE agents descended upon a five-story South Shore apartment in a nighttime raid. One witness said she saw agents detain and zip-tie children during the raid.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has continued his incitement against Democrats and their constituents. On Wednesday, Trump called for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to be put in jail over their criticism of the ICE raids.
DHS has claimed that the raids have led to hundreds of arrests of undocumented immigrants, though the Trump administration has been caught misrepresenting and inflating numbers — potentially in order to appease the president.
Note: This story has been updated to reflect the origin of and context surrounding the video.
Our most important fundraising appeal of the year
December is the most critical time of year for Truthout, because our nonprofit news is funded almost entirely by individual donations from readers like you. So before you navigate away, we ask that you take just a second to support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation.
This year is a little different. We are up against a far-reaching, wide-scale attack on press freedom coming from the Trump administration. 2025 was a year of frightening censorship, news industry corporate consolidation, and worsening financial conditions for progressive nonprofits across the board.
We can only resist Trump’s agenda by cultivating a strong base of support. The right-wing mediasphere is funded comfortably by billionaire owners and venture capitalist philanthropists. At Truthout, we have you.
We’ve set an ambitious target for our year-end campaign — a goal of $250,000 to keep up our fight against authoritarianism in 2026. Please take a meaningful action in this fight: make a one-time or monthly donation to Truthout before December 31. If you have the means, please dig deep.