Colorado DA charges ICE officer after violent protest confrontation in Durango

A Colorado district attorney has brought an unusually rare case against a federal immigration officer, charging U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Nicholas Rice with third-degree assault and criminal mischief after a confrontation outside the ICE field office in Durango.

The charges were filed by 6th Judicial District Attorney Sean P. Murray, and Rice was summoned to appear in La Plata County court on May 27, 2026. The case places a local prosecutor directly at the center of a clash over immigration enforcement, force at protests and the limits of state authority when federal officers are involved.

The confrontation unfolded during a protest tied to the detention of Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and his two minor children. Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center said it had been working with the family on an active asylum case since December 2024, and advocates said the family had been in Colorado for about 18 months. Community members gathered outside the office in Durango after word spread that the family could be moved toward detention in Texas.

Multiple videos from bystanders showed a masked federal agent, identified in court records as Rice, grabbing protester Franci Stagi, whose legal name is Anne Francesca Stagi. Stagi said she was filming the officer when the altercation began. She said Rice hit her hand hard, took her phone or caused her to drop it, then grabbed her by the hair, put her neck in the crook of his arm and carried her across the street by her head before throwing her down an embankment. Stagi has said she still has pain in her arm during daily activities.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation opened an inquiry at the request of Durango Police Chief Brice Current, who raised concerns about possible state-law violations. The CBI said it was examining whether state criminal laws had been broken and would present its findings to the district attorney’s office. Current called the referral an unusual step, underscoring how far local authorities went in a case involving a federal officer on federal property.

The FBI also reviewed the incident because it happened on federal property, adding another layer of jurisdictional friction. Legal experts and civil-rights advocates have watched the case closely because Colorado is among several states that restricted chokeholds and neck restraints after George Floyd’s death in 2020, and the misdemeanor charges carry a maximum sentence of just under a year in jail. That makes the case more than a one-off protest arrest. It tests whether state prosecutors can hold a federal officer to account for force used during immigration enforcement, and whether video evidence can push an otherwise shielded confrontation into a courtroom.