A protester detained by ICE goons while dressed in a giraffe suit is planning to sue the Trump administration.
Robby Roadsteamer, an artist prankster whose real name is Rob Potylo, told the Daily Beast that he was shot repeatedly in the chest with pepper-spray balls by the Department of Homeland Security’s rooftop snipers.
Potylo was singing a rude Rod Stewart song about ICE agents outside their facility in Portland, Oregon, when he was shot and then dragged inside by masked and armed officers in military fatigues.
Potylo said the officers then “bullied” him for 30 minutes in what he described as a “ludicrous” series of events.
“I hope I can sue ICE and DHS, and all the money I raise will go towards a top lawyer,” he told the Daily Beast. “As far as they want to go with it, I want to go a lot further. I want to sue the living s–t out of them.”
He described the scene outside 4310 S. Macadam Avenue, which since June has been the site of daily protests against ICE starring people wearing animal costumes, including a now-famous giant frog.
The Boston-based performer said, “I traveled to Portland and did what I do: Sing sexy karaoke hits on a 100-watt PA amp around my neck, dressed as a giraffe.
“I sang Rod Stewart’s ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ but changed the line to, ‘If you hate brown people, and you are a Nazi / Come on ICE, leave Portland,’ and ICE couldn’t handle it.
“Before they detained me, they had snipers on the roof shooting pepper paintballs at me. I got hit in the chest and the groin. I have footage of one of them smiling as he hit me.”
Potylo said he continued to sing, changing the words of President Donald Trump’s favorite song, “Y.M.C.A,” from “Young man” to “F— ICE,” and riffing on Trump’s past friendship with the pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
He said he goaded the officers, calling them “chickens–t” and “glorified mall cops” with “super-soakers,” as he hugged a giant shark.
“But I had to take a break because the pepper was so strong,” he said. “ICE thought they’d won, but my fellow activists washed my eyes with saline, and I went right back to singing like before.”
Potylo then said a cop on the ground warned him to stay away from the facility’s “do not cross” line, which he said he did.
“But they’d had enough of me catcalling them from behind the gate, so three of them grabbed me. They just couldn’t take it.”
Potylo said he was dragged inside the facility, where 15-20 officers “trolled” him. “It’s all a joke to them behind closed doors, it felt like high school all over again,” he said of the agents who processed him, some of whom “knew my career.”
“Militant jock types, bullying and joking, asking if I really came from Boston just to do this. The irony is, they’re not local. They admitted they had been brought in from out of state.”
Despite having received a citation for “failing to comply with the direct order of a law enforcement officer” not to cross the facility’s big painted “do not cross” blue line, and trespassing, Potylo insisted to the Beast he “was nowhere near” it.
Video and pictorial evidence reviewed by the Beast backs his claim.
The performer is part of a loose collective he described as “Unf— America,” showing up where “the action is” to answer military-style policing with absurdist spectacle—mascot suits, karaoke, and mock-arena bravado.
He claims to have been “the last person to troll Charlie Kirk‚” dressed as “Gary the Gator,” in Tampa in July.
Last October, he publicly mocked Steve Bannon during a press conference to mark the former Trump adviser’s release from prison, asking him, “I’m wondering, when’s the next insurrection?”
And just last week, Potylo was at a similar protest outside an ICE facility in Chicago. He said, “These guys are just a distraction for the Christian-nationalist crowd while the government pillages the coffers—tax breaks for the top 1 percent, stripping Social Security and education.
“A sleight of hand that outrages the public, working-class civil war over immigration while the s–t clowns in government sell crypto and let the richest man in the world [Elon Musk] run the economy for six months.”
Potylo frames his shtick as a deliberate throwback to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury during the 1967 “Summer of Love”—a counter-culture that answers state muscle with community, performance art, and humor.
“Peaceful activism with absurdity forces the other side to go so far they look completely ludicrous—like a Monty Python skit,” he said.
“I’m over Occupy,” Potylo said, referring to the international populist movement. “We don’t need people dressed in black, V-for-Vendetta masks, blocking streets, or [causing] destruction. Let’s go back to community, culture, comedy, absurdism.”
On the ground in Portland, Potylo described a festival atmosphere of food tents, theater kids, and peaceful people using animal onesies to reclaim public space with joy.
He said his citation means that he’ll have to return to Portland for court, and he plans to make that trip count, having started a GoFundMe to do so. At the time of publication, the effort had raised $84,000, including $2,000 from what appears to be the renowned Boston punk band the Dropkick Murphys.
Potylo said, “We can’t let these s–t clowns get too comfortable playing paintball from the top of roofs. It’s a terrible look for the country.”
Asked why he uses the costume and karaoke, Potylo didn’t hesitate. “Donald Trump’s in the WWE Hall of Fame,” he said. “He’s basically playing a wrestling heel. So I created a counter-character. People love to be entertained on the protest lines. I feel like Bob Hope out there for them.”
The case will turn on what the video shows and whether officers’ orders were lawful where Potylo was standing. The performer said he is ready for that fight—and ready to keep singing. “I’m going to sue the living s–t out of them,” he said. “Wear your nice suit, take your mask off.”
The Daily Beast has contacted ICE and DHS for comment.
The post Comedian Vows to Sue Over His ICE Arrest While Dressed as a Giraffe appeared first on The Daily Beast.
