For more than 30 years, she was one of those neighborhood shop owners who’d tell you the truth about how something looked on you, and her customers loved her for it. On Wednesday, she was standing in Lower Manhattan next to Governor Kathy Hochul, being introduced to a room full of reporters as the plaintiff in a case against ICE. (Thanks to Steven Stark for the tip.)
That’s Linda Wolff, 72, who ran the women’s clothing boutique CPW at 495 Amsterdam Avenue, on the corner of West 84th Street, until it closed at the end of January 2024. On July 30, roughly a year and a half after she locked up the shop for good, a masked federal immigration agent walked up to her on a sidewalk in Inwood and sprayed her in the face at close range.
Wolff told Hell Gate she’d rushed uptown from a pilates class after seeing a call for a rapid response to an ICE sighting near Isham Street and Seaman Avenue. When she got there, agents were milling around an ICE vehicle with a flat tire that was being towed. She started arguing with the tow truck driver, and as the two of them yelled at each other, an agent walked over and sprayed her without saying anything. Video of the moment spread quickly online. Later in the footage, after the NYPD shows up, she tells the agent he maced her. According to Hell Gate’s account, he answers, “I’m gonna do it again.”…