A district attorney in Colorado is pursuing assault charges against a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent who was involved in a confrontation with a leftist agitator late last year.
Sean P. Murray, the district attorney for Colorado’s Sixth Judicial District, announced charges against CBP officer Nicholas Rice. Rice faces one count of third-degree assault and one count of criminal mischief stemming from an incident during a protest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Durango, Colorado
Murray, a Democrat elected in 2024 to serve Archuleta, La Plata, and San Juan counties, filed the charges by summons and complaint.
Both charges relate to an incident occurred on October 28 of last year.Protesters had gathered outside the ICE office following the detention the previous day of three Colombian asylum-seekers.
Video footage of the protest, which was widely shared on social media, shows a masked federal agent, identified as Rice, interacting with 57-year-old protester Franci Stagi, a retired hypnotherapist. According to Stagi’s account, she held her phone in front of the agent’s face while filming and then reached for his shoulder to get his attention as he walked away.
Footage obtained by the Huffington Post confirms this, as Stagi can be seen placing her hand on the agent’s shoulder and pulling backwards. At that point, the agent turned around and grabbed Stagi around her upper body before eventually tossing her on a nearby embankment.
Stagi claimed that she was put in a “chokehold,” though the video does not appear to confirm this, nor was a chokehold referenced in court documents. They do reference unspecified “bodily injury” after Stagi complained of lasting pain from the incident.
The anti-immigration enforcement agitator spoke with a Durango Police Department officer the following day, and the case was ultimately investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Anti-ICE protester in Durango, Colorado, assaults an ICE officer and then gets thrown to the ground.
57-year-old Franci Stagi put her phone up near the face of an agent who then snatched it away. She responded by attacking him and he defended himself.
This was outside the ICE… pic.twitter.com/8B1dPOqwPr
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) October 30, 2025
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both CBP and ICE, condemned the state charges and described them as a politically-motivated exercise. “Federal officers acting in the course of their duties can only be investigated by other Federal agencies,” a DHS spokesperson said.
CBP has launched its own internal investigation into the incident but declined to comment immediately on the state charges or on whether Rice remains on duty.
The case is likely to face significant legal hurdles due to the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes federal law as the supreme law of the land and preempts conflicting state actions. Under long-standing precedent, including the Supreme Court’s decision in In re Neagle (1890), federal officers receive protection from state criminal prosecution when they act within the scope of their federal authority and their conduct is “necessary and proper” to the performance of their duties.
This doctrine, often referred to as Supremacy Clause immunity, does not grant blanket immunity but requires a federal court to review whether the officer’s actions were authorized by federal law and whether any use of force was justified in the circumstances.
Now acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated late last year that arrests of federal officers performing their duties would be “illegal and futile,” citing the Supremacy Clause and federal law
