Federal Agents Mace 19-Year-Old at Point-Blank Range Outside Portland ICE Facility
Hands raised, eyes burning, a young protester becomes another witness to the quiet brutality that has defined Trump's regime
Written by Dominick Skinner | 5 October 2025
There’s a particular kind of silence that hangs outside Portland’s ICE detention center late at night, the kind that feels like it’s waiting for something to break it. On October 2nd, 2025, that silence shattered again. This time, the person in the line of fire was 19-year-old Leilani Payne, a protester who’s been out there almost every night since early June, documenting, shouting, sometimes just standing, part of the small, determined crowd that refuses to let what happens behind those walls disappear into the media silence gripping anti-ICE protests.
Leilani told The Crustian Daily that she was standing exactly where officers had told her to stand. “He asked me to step back,” she said, “and I raised my hands and told him, I’m exactly where I was told to be. I truly believed this was where the line ended, and I had people behind me.” Video shows these events happening, and crucially, do not show any violence taking place whatsoever, beyond the violence of the Department of Homeland Security officer.
Seconds later, one of the officers, wearing the badge number 1164, stepped forward and sprayed her directly in the face from no more than arm’s length away. She described it as being “inches” away, video reviewed by The Crustian Daily suggests a distance of roughly five centimetres, about 2 inches. The video also shows that the assaulting agent had tapped his comrades, warning them of his incoming assault, a warning that was not offered to Leilani. Unlike Ms. Payne, the agents on site adorned gas masks to help fight the chemicals, this fact leading her to feeling physically unwell, even two days after the assault.
“I’m doing better now,” she told us. “My eyes are fine, but I still feel it in my stomach. It’s like a lingering ache.”
She was treated briefly by firefighters who poured water over her face and took her name, but she didn’t go home. “I was back out on the grounds less than an hour after I was maced,” she said, almost defiantly. “I’ve been out there for over a hundred days and I’m not stopping.”
October 2nd wasn’t the most chaotic night Portland has seen. Payne said it began quietly, protesters were spread out, some near the gate, others along the sidewalk. There was one altercation earlier between a MAGA-aligned agitator and a protester that ended in arrests by local police. But otherwise, things were calm. “It was honestly a very quiet night,” she said.
Then, as it often does, a “show of force” began, the term protesters use for the sudden waves of DHS and Federal Protective Service officers that emerge from the ICE facility. “They come out in groups,” she explained. “Sometimes it’s to let cars out, sometimes to make an arrest, sometimes they just stand there. We really don’t know why. It feels completely random.”
When the federal line advanced this time, Payne was on the street with about ten others, while roughly sixty more protesters, along with some press, stood scattered farther back.
She described how, during these operations, officers will sometimes grab random people, even those standing alone or quietly recording, and drag them into the facility. “They’ll run up and grab someone who didn’t even know they’d committed a crime,” she said. “They’ll assault and push people, and the rest of us are left confused, not even knowing what the arrests are for until someone gets released and tells us.”
When the line reached Payne, one of the officers ordered her to step back. She raised her hands, told him she was already where she was told to be, and stayed still. Standing still was all it took for this coward to act. The officer, badge 1164, stepped forward and sprayed her directly.
Video from the scene shows Payne standing calmly, hands up, surrounded by agents with weapons and shields. She’s sprayed in the face without any visible provocation. The moment is so fast it looks almost procedural, a casual act of violence performed as part of the routine.
Payne says another officer, badge 1450, had already body-checked one of her friends minutes earlier, which can also be seen on video. The same officer had, earlier in the night, nodded at her when she told him, “I will remember you.” “He just shook his head yes,” she said. “Thirty minutes later he was the one pushing my friend.”
The friend was also sprayed. Payne says she can still see the officer in her footage, stepping in front of the line, closing the distance, and firing at their faces from only inches away. It must be noted, that not only was the officer face-to-face with Payne, he felt the need to have his hand outstretched, reducing the distance to an absolute minimum, and well within the range where real damage could have been inflicted on his victim.
On June 14th, she filmed officers pointing live weapons at protesters around 7 p.m. “That was the most fearful I’ve been,” she said. “You can see him raise it with no provocation. The other officers didn’t even seem to notice.”
She shared that video with The Crustian Daily. It shows agents in full tactical gear, rifles raised, facing an unarmed crowd. The moment passes without a shot, but the tension is unmistakable.
The ICE facility is already under investigation for misconduct and jurisdictional overreach. “They got a warning about a month ago,” she said. “It basically says that if they violate their jurisdiction within sixty days, their permit in Portland could be revoked.”
The Crustian Daily has independently confirmed that a review is ongoing into the Portland facility’s compliance with local ordinances, but DHS has not responded to our requests for comment on the specific incident or on Payne’s allegations.
She says other media outlets have also reached out to DHS and ICE for statements. “Some stations have asked for comment,” she said, “but no one’s gotten an answer,” which lines up with our experience.
For Payne and others who gather outside ICE, the legal boundaries of the space are constantly shifting. ICE seem to think that an approaching vehicle changes the entire street to become ICE property, but it does not. The street belongs to the city, while the Federal employees belong to the US government, they cannot simply claim the territory surrounding their controversial building.
The corner where she was sprayed is technically city land, a public street in front of a federal building. Yet for months now, ICE has treated it as an extension of their compound, declaring protesters in violation of federal law for standing where pedestrians normally pass. Americans have the right to protest, even under this administration, and regardless of what this administration says.
When I asked if this assault would change her protest activities, she didn’t hesitate. “Nope,” she said. “I was back out there less than an hour later.”
That’s the part that sticks, the resolve. A 19-year-old who’s been maced, shoved, and stood in front of live weapons, still showing up. While it’s wrong that any attack occurred, the resilience of Leilani Payne is something that the rest of the USA could learn from, and they should. Fascism requires this energy to keep it suppressed, people who are willing to go onto the streets, regardless of the risk of assault.
As seen in Portland, Washington D.C., Chicago and elsewhere, there are plenty of people who share Leilani’s resilience, and maybe that’s what terrifies them most.