Customs and Border Protection agent charged with assault in connection with Durango, Colorado, protest

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent has been charged with assault almost six months after he allegedly shoved a woman to the ground at a protest in southwestern Colorado.

Nicholas Rice, 47, has been issued a summons to appear in court on local charges of misdemeanor third-degree assault and criminal mischief over his alleged behavior at a protest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Durango early on the morning of Oct. 28, 2025.

Video of a masked agent shoving a woman to the ground at the protest went viral across social media platforms in the days after. Protesters gathered after 45-year-old Fernando Jaramillo-Solano was taking his 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son to school, and they were arrested by ICE agents. Gregory Davies, a senior official with ICE's Denver field office, testified in federal court days later that Jaramillo-Solano was "mistaken" for someone else the agency was looking for.

The arrest of the family prompted an immediate protest outside the agency's facility.

A masked agent, now identified as Rice, was seen in multiple videos recorded by protesters grabbing a woman's phone and throwing her to the ground.

That woman, 57-year-old Franci Stagi, told CBS News Colorado on Wednesday, "I'm glad something is being done finally, for not just me, but for all the people," but said she wanted to consult with her attorney before speaking further about the charges against the agent.

Stagi said at the time of the protest that she remembered recording the agent on her phone when he grabbed it and assaulted her.

"He grabbed me by the hair, and he lifted me off the ground somehow, in a chokehold. It's still really blurry, but I've seen the video myself," she said at the time, choking up in tears as she recalled. "Then he and two other ICE agents were over top of me which- they're huge people and it's just pretty surprising that this would happen."

Stagi described herself as a 5-foot-2-inch waitress and expressed concern about the children who were in custody and their treatment.

Stagi was not charged in connection with the protest and has no criminal record in Colorado. 

Rice hadn't been publicly identified until he was charged. In videos taken that night, he was wearing a mask covering his face and only identified with a patch on his vest that read "police" with a badge next to it.

"We know, the courts have confirmed that people have a right to record the police. That includes federal law enforcement," said Tim Macdonald, legal director for ACLU of Colorado. "Lots of time, law enforcement doesn't like that. So we have seen instances where, whether it's federal or other law enforcement, try to confiscate, take people's phones away from them, because they don't want the public to know what's been happening."

Macdonald said the rights of protesters are well established: "It's a sacred right in this country to protest, to voice concerns to our government, to petition our government. And let them know if a citizen doesn't like what the government is doing, they have a First Amendment right to do that. It's a bedrock principle of our country."

The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but said at the time that Jaramillo-Solano entered the U.S. illegally from Colombia on Dec. 22, 2024, near San Diego. The spokesperson went on to say that the actions of the protesters "delay justice," and "inadvertently" push for the release of allegedly violent criminals in the facility, whose cases are unrelated to that of Jaramillo-Solano, who was not accused of any violent crimes.

Davies testified in federal court at the time that ICE won't arrest anyone who's going through legal immigration proceedings, but attorneys with the ACLU of Colorado responded, saying that Jaramillo-Solano was going through the asylum process. Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center told CBS Colorado the same, saying it was helping the family go through that process.

On Wednesday, Enrique Orozco-Perez, co-executive director of Compañeros, said the Jaramillo-Solano family is no longer in the United States. Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and the two children were detained at an ICE detention family detention center in Dilley, Texas, where Orozco-Perez said the children experienced mental health issues, but declined treatment out of fear. The father and two children self-deported back to Colombia, where the family had fled amid fears of violence. The children's mother followed weeks later. She was the lead on the asylum case, Orozco-Perez said. 

Rice was issued a summons and is due in La Plata County Court on May 27. Court records show he had not yet retained or been assigned an attorney and contact information couldn't be located for him through public records.