A person was hit and killed on a Southern California freeway Thursday whereas he was working from an immigration raid at a Residence Depot, authorities mentioned.
Dylan Feik, town supervisor of Monrovia, in Los Angeles County about 10 miles northeast of Pasadena, mentioned a police officer noticed the raid after the police division obtained a name about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement exercise within the space.
In the course of the exercise, somebody ran onto the 210 Freeway, he mentioned. Shortly afterward, the fireplace division and emergency staff responded to a name of a automobile hitting a pedestrian.
The particular person was taken to a hospital and died from accidents sustained within the incident, Feik mentioned.
The California Freeway Patrol mentioned that the sufferer was a person and that the circumstances round his demise are beneath investigation. His identification has not been publicly launched.
Video recorded moments after the accident reveals a person in a black T-shirt mendacity close to the within lane of the freeway.
Vincent Enriquez, who recorded the video, mentioned he thought at first it was a motorbike accident.
“I used to be type of confused on how he was on the freeway laying down,” he mentioned. “I assumed both he was hit by a automobile attempting to cross or he should’ve gotten out of the automobile from a automobile accident.”
The Division of Homeland Safety denied its brokers chased the particular person and mentioned they have no idea the particular person’s authorized standing.
“This particular person was not being pursued by any DHS regulation enforcement,” a spokesperson mentioned in an announcement. “We weren’t conscious of this incident or notified by California Freeway Patrol till hours after operations within the space had concluded.”
Feik mentioned that town didn’t have any further details about the operation, together with about any doable detentions, and that Monrovia has not obtained any communication from ICE.
Palmira Figueroa, spokesperson for the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community, mentioned 13 staff had been detained in the course of the raid. “It was a violent, aggressive bust,” she mentioned. “A few of them had been chasing staff in vehicles whereas they had been working away.”
Community organizers are attempting to achieve members of the family, in addition to the opposite males who had been detained, Figueroa mentioned.
Movies posted on social media seem to point out brokers detaining an individual within the parking zone of the Residence Depot, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark in regards to the immigration exercise.
State Assemblymember John Harabedian, whose district consists of Monrovia, mentioned in an announcement on his Instagram story that 10 individuals had been detained within the raid.
“Raids like this don’t make our streets safer — they terrorize households, instill worry, and put lives in danger,” he mentioned.
Immigration officers have concentrated a lot of their raids on Residence Depots and different dwelling enchancment retailers that day laborers are identified to frequent.
On Tuesday, Enforcement Elimination Operations brokers performed a “focused enforcement operation” at a Residence Depot in Washington, D.C., as part of the Trump administration’s wider crackdown on immigrants and homeless individuals within the metropolis.
An appeals court docket this month maintained a Los Angeles federal decide’s momentary restraining order that bars immigration brokers from utilizing individuals’s spoken languages or jobs, like day laborer, or their presence at specific places as the only pretext to detain them.