Video shows arrest of CMS bus driver protesting at Charlotte ICE office
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Border Patrol in Charlotte
U.S. Border Patrol began making rounds in Charlotte on Saturday morning.
This follows recent Border Patrol activity in Chicago that made headlines, with some reports alleging agents violated people’s rights.
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A Charlotte woman released video footage of her arrest during a protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, and said that the government lied about the felony charge she faces.
The arrest happened Sunday morning, Nov. 16, at the ICE office on Tyvola Centre Drive in Charlotte.
Federal prosecutors said in a news release that 44-year-old Heather Morrow approached an agent from behind while he tried to arrest someone else, grabbed his shoulders and attempted to jump on his back. She and others were there in an “apparent effort to impede law enforcement movement on the property,” prosecutors said.
She has been charged with felony assault, resist, or impede a federal officer.
Morrow’s attorney, Xavier T. de Janon, told The Charlotte Observer that she suffers from fibromyalgia, shingles and arthritis, and that she would not be able to physically do what prosecutors accused her of.
She is a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools bus driver, he said.
The video tells a different story than the one an FBI agent wrote in a criminal complaint against Morrow earlier this week, de Janon said.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson’s office did not comment on the video or Morrow’s claims. ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams also did not respond when The Charlotte Observer shared the video with him.
Since federal Border Patrol agents arrived in Charlotte and began making arrests Nov. 15, activists have hit the streets, tracked and reported their movements and pushed back in other ways.
While ICE is a different agency than Customs and Border Protection, both fall under the federal Department of Homeland Security and enforce immigration law.
What video shows
The 49-second video opens with someone in a police vest telling protesters in the parking lot to “get out of the way.”
A protester puts their hands on the front of a pickup truck moving in the lot, then pushes against it, as if trying to stop it.
“Name and badge number, now!” someone shouts at the agents. “Name and badge number!”
The camera quickly moves to the right as someone out of view shouts, “Come here, motherf***er!”
Then, someone in a green hoodie — seemingly a federal police officer — struggles and spins in the lot with the person who pushed on the truck. Another agent joins in, and they hold that protester against a different vehicle.
While the person who touched the truck is spinning around with an agent, Morrow appears to reach out and touch the agent’s shoulder. A third agent in a police vest tackles her to the ground. She is held down and handcuffed.
De Janon, her attorney, said the video captures all physical interaction between Morrow and the agents.
“The conclusion I reach is that (agents) started arresting someone,” he said. “Ms. Morrow got concerned and walked towards there. She does move her arm towards the officer, and then she gets immediately tackled to the ground. There is no jumping. There’s no grabbing of shoulders.”
What an FBI agent wrote
FBI Special Agent Michael Gregory wrote in a criminal complaint against Morrow that she and others were “attempting to block the entrance” to the ICE office with their bodies and cones.
When an agent driving the pickup truck arrived, they kept him from pulling in, the complaint said. So, the complaint said, he used his PA system five or six times to tell them they would be arrested if they did not move.
Another agent arrived, according to the complaint.
He approached the protesters, pulled out his pepper spray and warned that he would spray and arrest them if they did not leave, the complaint said.
“Please don’t spray me,” Morrow said as she turned away, according to the complaint.
More agents arrived, and the protesters moved enough that the truck was able to get through, the complaint said.
That’s when the complaint said that someone started pushing against the truck, and when it stopped, someone punched the window.
From there, the struggle seen in the video played out.
But the FBI agent’s account claims that one of the agents felt “jolted” from Morrow grabbing his shoulders. One of the agents said that they witnessed Morrow “attempt to jump on the back of (an agent) by placing both of her hands (the agent’s) shoulders while she had one foot off the ground.”
Morrow also said, “Don’t arrest my friend,” and “I’m a U.S. citizen. You can’t arrest me,” the FBI agent’s account said.
Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 5:11 PM.
