(RNS) — In video recorded on Friday (Nov. 14) outside the embattled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, the Rev. Michael Woolf stands alongside fellow protesters, fiddling awkwardly with his backpack as faith leaders and other protesters chant slogans at a line of police officers. A moment later, one officer can be seen walking forward, grabbing Woolf by the wrist and yanking.
Demonstrators attempted to hold on to Woolf, who was a clerical collar, but four officers wrenched him from the crowd and tossed him to the ground. After turning him onto his stomach, officers proceeded to arrest Woolf, and removed him to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Maywood, Illinois.
“I’ve got bruises all over my body,” Woolf, an American Baptist minister who is pastor of Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, told Religion News Service. He was speaking in his first interview since being released Friday afternoon after about seven hours in custody.
Woolf said when he asked the arresting officers to loosen the plastic handcuffs that were causing his hands to go numb, an officer replied: “Nobody wants to talk to you — shut the f–k up.”
“It’s part of the dehumanizing nature of it, and it’s it gives me a lot of clarity around what’s happening here,” said Woolf, who has been active in protests again …