Brookfield police records show Adam Saracco, who has been charged with misdemeanor battery against lawyer Robert Held, failed to identify himself as a federal agent when police responded to the scene of the incident on Dec. 27.
In body camera footage obtained by the Landmark through a public records request, a police officer is seen asking Saracco, “Nobody is law enforcement or anything? Where is the federal agent thing coming into play?”
In the footage, Saracco responded, “That’s what [Held] said. He said I’m a federal agent.”
Saracco did not identify himself as an agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the footage, which is partially redacted. Saracco did tell police that Held “followed me from my work.”
Held told the Landmark in December that he followed Saracco from the ICE detention facility in Broadview, which he also told Brookfield police, according to their incident report, which was obtained through the same records request.
Representatives of ICE and the United States Department of Homeland Security have referred to Saracco as an ICE officer.
“It is gross that our officer is facing charges for responding to a direct threat against him and his safety. We stand firmly behind our officer,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, in a written statement provided to the Landmark by Erin Bultje, ICE’s Midwest director of public affairs, on Jan. 27.
In the statement, McLaughlin called Saracco “an off-duty ICE law enforcement officer [who] was targeted and aggressively harassed by a known ICE agitator.”
She described Held’s following and filming of Saracco as “clear attempts to dox our officer. The officer, who was alone and without protective equipment, acted to protect himself when faced with this threatening behavior. We won’t accept this; stay tuned.”
McLaughlin said ICE agents “are facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults against them and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats against them,” though the source of that data is unclear.
In a press release dated Jan. 28, Held called McLaughlin’s statement false.
“I didn’t stalk anyone. What she calls ‘malicious rhetoric,’ I call documentation. What she calls ‘agitation,’ I call accountability. What she calls a ‘threat,’ a local police department and prosecutor call battery,” he said. “I was not a threat to Saracco … He is a federal agent who tried to silence me with violence.”
Brookfield Village President Michael Garvey called Saracco’s status as an ICE agent “irrelevant” to the charges against him.
“The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, after review of the evidence in the case, including videos of the occurrence and witness statements, made a decision to charge the individual with a misdemeanor battery. His employment status did not and should not have played any role in the charging decision, to the best of my knowledge,” Garvey said. “I know it didn’t play any role in the Brookfield Police Department’s investigation.”
In an emailed statement, Mike Waters, a representative from Indivisible West Suburban, a local activism group whose members have been outspoken and protested against ICE’s immigration enforcement activities in the Chicagoland area, described the alleged battery as “yet another example of ICE agents attacking citizens” for exercising their rights.
“The Department of Homeland Security continues to reflexively defend egregious actions by its agents without even bothering to investigate them,” Waters wrote. “Brookfield police and the state’s attorney’s office, who are actual law enforcement, acted appropriately by charging Mr. Saracco with battery. Mr. Saracco will get his day in court – something ICE is not providing many of the immigrants it is detaining.”
Update, Feb. 6, 2026, 1:45 p.m.: This story was updated to include a statement from Indivisible West Suburban representatives obtained after publication.
