An ICE-watch observer who witnessed the incident unfold on 21 October told the Guardian that masked ICE agents approached Zepeda from behind, pinned him face-down on the ground and put him in a car. The agents then drove the student around for a while before letting him out. With a black eye and his wrist in severe pain, Zepeda walked the remaining half mile to his school, where staff called an ambulance.

The observer, who volunteers with a local rapid response network to document ICE activity, asked not to be named due to fears of retaliation from federal officials. To independently verify the observer’s account, the Guardian reviewed dashcam and phone videos that the observer recorded of the incident.

Local activists and US lawmakers are calling the ordeal the latest example of ICE brutality.

“ICE’s assault and wrongful detainment of Erik Zepeda was grotesque and heartbreaking,” said Adam Schiff, a Democratic US senator from California, in a statement to the Guardian. “There must be accountability for what happened to Erik.”