The Attack on the Twelfth Floor: When Press Freedom Ends in the Intensive Care Unit

The linoleum floor on the twelfth floor of Federal Plaza 26 in Manhattan knows many stories. It has heard the shuffling steps of desperate families waiting anxiously for their hearings. It carries the invisible traces of tears shed after devastating rulings. But on the morning of September 30, 2025, it bore witness to something that, even in the heated atmosphere of Trump’s second term, crossed the boundaries of what is bearable: A Turkish photojournalist lay there, L. Vural Elibol, his head on the hard floor, after masked federal agents attacked a group of journalists.

The footage taken by photographer Stephanie Keith at that moment burns itself into memory. It does not show a proper arrest, no controlled police work. It documents raw violence in a public building, carried out by masked agents against members of the press who were doing nothing more than their job - the job that in a democracy is considered the fourth estate, the indispensable watchdog of power.

Dean Moses, an experienced police reporter, had already lived through many tense situations. But what happened when he tried to document an arrest surpassed anything before. "I went into the elevator behind them, and they started yelling at me," Moses recounts. The masked ICE agents grabbed him by the arms, dragged him out of the cab. Moses tried to hold on, but the force was too great. With such violence was he thrown out that a chain reaction followed. Olga Fedorova, a freelance photographer, was standing in the hallway documenting the scene. An agent pushed her aside. She staggered backwards, lost her balance. And then came the domino effect of horror: Fedorova fell, dragging Elibol down with her. The videographer of the Turkish news agency Anadolu struck his head on the floor.

The long wait on the linoleum

What followed were minutes that felt like hours. Eyewitnesses report that Elibol lay on the floor for up to 40 minutes before adequate medical help arrived. A passerby held his head, a nurse who happened to be present took over first aid. The images later show Elibol in a neck brace as paramedics roll him out of the building on a stretcher. His face: a mask of pain and confusion. Fedorova, who has been reporting regularly from immigration court for months, cannot grasp the escalation. "When they tell us to go out, not to cross a certain line, we follow their instructions," she stresses. "In this case, no one understood that it was even an arrest."

In fact, the journalists were moving in an area accessible to the public. Here worlds collide every day: immigrants on their way to fateful hearings, agents waiting for their next arrest, activists protesting against the deportation machinery, and journalists documenting it all. It is a microcosm of American immigration policy, a magnifying glass for the tensions tearing the country apart.

The official version of the Department of Homeland Security reads like it comes from a parallel universe. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin claims the agents were "swarmed by agitators and members of the press," which had hindered the operation. "The officers repeatedly instructed the crowd of agitators and journalists to step back, move, and leave the elevator," McLaughlin explains. She goes even further, accusing "rioters and sanctuary politicians" of creating a hostile environment that endangered officers, detainees, and the public.

Rioters? The video footage shows journalists with cameras, not masked violent offenders. Agitators? The only aggression documented came from the masked federal agents.

A pattern of escalation

The attack on the journalists was not an isolated incident. Only a few days earlier another video had caused outrage: An ICE agent hurled an Ecuadorian woman against a wall and to the ground after her husband was arrested. The footage went viral, sparking a debate about the methods of the immigration authority under Trump’s second presidency.

Please also read our article: "Before Our Very Eyes," at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/vor-unser-aller-augen/

Since his inauguration in January 2025, Trump has delivered on his promise of an even tougher stance in immigration policy. The raids have intensified, the rhetoric has hardened. But what is happening at 26 Federal Plaza marks a new level of escalation. Here it is not only immigrants who are targeted - here those who want to report on it are systematically attacked.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul found clear words: "This abuse of law-abiding immigrants and the reporters who tell their stories must stop. What the hell are we doing here?" Zohran Mamdani, member of the State Assembly and candidate for mayor, warned: "We cannot accept or normalize what has now become routine violence at 26 Federal Plaza. It has no place in our city."

The attack on the journalists raises fundamental questions. In what America do we live when federal agents appear masked like paramilitary units? When they knock down members of the press who are doing nothing but informing the public? When documenting government action is punished with hospital stays?

The images of L. Vural Elibol on the stretcher are more than just the documentation of an outbreak of violence. They are a wake-up call. They show what happens when the executive abuses its power and declares the fourth estate the enemy. They remind us that press freedom is not a luxury to be enjoyed in calm times but becomes indispensable precisely when the state flexes its muscles. For all of us it was immediately self-evident to support Vural Elibion and his family and we have already set things and funds in motion. In our documentation "The Broken City: Los Angeles in June 2025 - A Journalistic Analysis after Weeks of Research," at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-zerbrochene-stadt-los-angeles-im-juni-2025-eine-journalistische-aufarbeitung-nach-wochenlangen-recherchen/ -, we had reported extensively on violence also against journalists.

The linoleum floor on the twelfth floor of Federal Plaza took on a new story on Tuesday. It is the story of the day masked agents threw a journalist to the ground because he pointed his camera at them. It is the story of the day America moved another step away from its democratic ideals. And it is the story that concerns us all - because if journalists are punished with violence for their work, then the next question is not if, but only when the darkness will also engulf the rest of us.