A video journalist was injured on Tuesday during a tumultuous scene involving federal agents at a Manhattan immigration courthouse less than a week after another officer was captured on video shoving a woman in a confrontation.
A hallway on the 12th floor at 26 Federal Plaza, the site of immigration courtrooms, descended into chaos as two women got into an elevator followed by masked agents and a journalist, Dean Moses of amNY. The brief melee, captured on video, began to unfold when one of the agents cursed at Mr. Moses and shoved him out of the elevator and back toward a scrum of about a dozen journalists and camera crews crowded behind him.
Eyewitnesses said that another agent then pushed a second journalist, Olga Fedorova, who was in the hallway outside the elevator, onto the floor.
The scene unfolded so swiftly that it was difficult to ascertain the exact sequence of events.
“I just knew that I had to try to get photos of whatever is happening,” said Ms. Fedorova, a freelance photographer who said that she tried to capture pictures of the agents shoving the first journalist. “It was incredibly quick.”
Ms. Fedorova said that she felt herself flying backward and falling before she got up quickly to take more pictures as the elevator doors closed. Ms. Fedorova said that the third journalist was already on the floor when she hit the ground. She said he appeared to be badly hurt. It was not clear how he ended up on the floor.
“His camera was next to him — it was still on,” she said. “He was covering his face and he was moaning in pain and he was unable to move.”
A nurse at the building attended to the injured journalist, identified as L. Vural Elibol, until emergency crews placed a neck brace on him and removed him on a stretcher. Mr. Elibol, who works with the Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi, was taken to a hospital where he was being evaluated Tuesday afternoon.
“He was just like laying down on the floor,” his colleague Mostafa Bassim, a photojournalist, said. “He couldn’t talk or, like, function at all.”
Mr. Elibol lives in New Jersey with his wife and son, Mr. Bassim said.
On social media, Gov. Kathy Hochul accused the federal agents of abusing law-abiding immigrants and the reporters telling their stories.
“What the hell are we doing here?” she said in a post on X.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that agents had been attempting to arrest an undocumented immigrant from Peru when they were “swarmed by agitators and members of the press, which obstructed operations.” She said that the officers had told the crowd repeatedly to get back.
Ms. McLaughlin said that the building had been the target of threats, including a bomb threat and a menacing letter containing white powder. She added that the agency was on high alert after a sniper opened fire last week on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas.
“Following last week’s terrorist attack, we are particularly concerned with our officers’ safety,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “Again, we are urging the media and politicians to stop fanning the flames of division and stop demonization of law enforcement.”
Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, and Brad Lander, the city comptroller, condemned the incident, and Mr. Williams urged the Police Department to intervene in the actions of federal agents. Mr. Williams and Mr. Lander were among more than a dozen Democratic elected officials who were arrested earlier in September inside and outside the federal building. Many of the officials had demanded access to cells used by ICE to detain migrants, while others blocked the garage entrance that ICE uses to transport detained migrants.
“The N.Y.P.D. should explore any ability they have to stop these repeat offenders committing violence in our city,” Mr. Williams said in a statement. “The Trump administration is working to create an ‘other’ that includes immigrants, the media, progressives — anyone who they feel stands in their way — to give themselves permission for state-sanctioned violence.”
Officials from the Police Department deferred questions about the incident to federal authorities and did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Mr. Williams’s statement.
Last week, another federal agent was placed under investigation after a widely circulated video showed him pushing a woman to the ground as her husband was placed in detention.
The day after that episode, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security described the agent’s behavior as “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE.”
The footage of last week’s incident set off an outcry from New York City officials who denounced the behavior of the officer, who has not been identified, and demanded that he be disciplined.