The Rev. Jorge Bautista, pastor of the College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo, had been shot in the chin with a pepper “less lethal” round by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent during a protest of immigration raids outside Coast Guard Island. Stephen Lam/S.F. ChronicleEven when the Border Patrol agent raised his weapon, the Rev. Jorge Bautista didn’t think anything would happen. There was no way the agent would shoot. Then something crashed into his face, just above his chin. Fumes from a pepper ball round filled the air, making him cough as his eyes burned and his vision blurred.Bautista, pastor at the College Heights United Church of Christ in San Mateo, rose Thursday before sunrise, donned his typical black slacks, shirt and blazer and drove to Coast Guard Island to join a prayer vigil in opposition to the immigration crackdown in San Francisco that President Donald Trump had announced the day before.Article continues below this ad“Our role was to bear witness and to give a message about why we’re unhappy that ICE is here,” he said. “We were hoping to just have a press conference and show solidarity.”Bautista’s encounter briefly made him the face of Thursday’s protest, where demonstrators squared off against Border Patrol agents in a volatile encounter mirroring similar incidents across the country.San Francisco Chronicle LogoMake us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.Add Preferred SourceThursday’s protest and vigil was hardly Bautista’s first — he was arrested in 2016 while demonstrating against Border Patrol.Article continues below this ad“Our immigration system has been broken for way too long,” he said. “And in my role as a pastor I have always felt that I’ve been summoned” to advocate for migrant justice.When he arrived at the intersection of Dennison Street and Embarcadero on Thursday morning, there were already scores of protesters alongside those who’d come for the vigil. Some blew bubbles, others sang songs. It felt like a similar vibe to what he’d seen from recent demonstrations in Portland.Less than 20 minutes after he arrived, however, a caravan carrying Border Patrol agents came tearing down Dennison, braking abruptly in front of protesters who’d blocked the entrance into Coast Guard Island.“This cannot be good,” he thought. A few agents hopped out of the vans and started yelling.Article continues below this ad“You’re not gonna do nothing to stop us,” Bautista heard them yell. “We’re gonna push through no matter what!”The vans’ engines started revving, and the vehicles began pushing through the crowd.Bautista, who was standing at one corner at the intersection, began walking toward the vehicles. He wanted to see what was going on, and try to de-escalate the situation, he said.He saw the vans inch through the protesters, and then several armed agents pop out of the vehicles carrying intimidating-looking weapons. “This is not good for anyone right now,” he thought.Article continues below this adBautista stood a few feet away from the agents, and tried to talk to them.“When I saw those weapons, I knew I needed to step in and I was just convinced that it would really bring a sense of neutrality for some reason,” he said. “But that was very naive of me, right?”In his clerical garb, he hoped his presence would calm the federal agents down, he said, and get them to stop brandishing their weapons at the protesters.“We’re here in peace,” he recalled yelling. “And at that moment I saw one agent coming straight at me.” Moments later, he was staring down the barrel of a gun, just a few feet away.Article continues below this ad“I still was convinced there’s no way he’s gonna shoot his weapon at me,” he thought. “No way, especially because he is so close to me.”The antagonism felt “completely unnecessary,” he said. A moment later, the federal agent fired. “He just shot straight at me,” he said, gesturing at his chin.He fell to the ground, in shock. Had he been struck by a bullet? Some sort of metal canister? Were bones broken? He wasn’t sure. “This fool really shot at me,” he thought, as he struggled to breathe. He stumbled around blindly, unable to open his eyes, until other protesters pulled him out of the cloud of searing pepper gas and poured water on his face and eyes. The border patrol officer had shot him directly in the face with a pepper ball round, covering him with stinging chemicals that made it hard to breathe or see.When he could open his eyes again, he found he was kneeling on the corner where he first started protesting. He couldn’t stop the feelings of anger.“How is it possible that people who are protesting become so offensive to the government that they wanna cause harm to you?” he said. Remnants of a pepper round fired by CBP are shown on the Rev. Jorge Bautista the day after he was shot in the chin during a protest of immigration raids outside Coast Guard Island.Stephen Lam/S.F. ChronicleOther protesters took him to Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, where emergency room doctors made him shower to get the pepper spray off his body and from potentially harming others in the medical facility. Bautista was not the only person injured Thursday — hours later, Coast Guard members shot at a U-Haul truck backing up to the entrance of the base, injuring the driver and a bystander.By Friday, the threat of a Bay Area-wide immigration crackdown appeared to be over. Trump said he called off the federal deployment in San Francisco on Thursday. A day later, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said her administration was told the enforcement surge had been halted for the rest of the Bay Area.Bautista doesn’t plan to stop protesting.“We’re not afraid. They want us to be afraid and we’re not afraid, and we’re going to continue to show up,” he said. “And we’re going to continue to practice our rights to protest and to do our diligence and make sure that our communities are protected.”