Luis Hipolito is pushed to the pavement by four plainclothes, masked agents on a busy downtown thoroughfare, who then pile him up against a curb. One wraps his arm around the neck of the 23-year-old. As the agents try to cuff Hipolito for over two minutes, he appears to have trouble breathing on his stomach.
Will you allow him to perish? As the throng were driven back by other agents, one bystander screamed.
Shortly after, they haul him up. Hipolito’s legs tremble and give way. His body trembles violently and his head swings back. The abrupt convulsions appear to be the start of a seizure.
The incident, which was caught on many recordings on Tuesday morning and disseminated on social media, infuriated residents, family members, and immigrant supporters. The dangers of the Trump administration crackdown in Los Angeles, where agents are conducting immigration sweeps on crowded streets without specific targets, have come under scrutiny.
According to Deborah Fleischaker, a former acting chief of staff for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who watched some of the footage, this highlights the inherent risk of at-large arrests. They ought to be avoided at all costs. Not everything is within your control. There is a significant chance of violence, injury, or a medical incident. The same is true for the target and the police.
However, she claimed that the chaos seems to be a component of the government’s strategy. Here, the degree of confusion and terror it creates seems to be a benefit rather than a drawback.
California
When border officers high-fived one other after grabbing hundreds at Home Depot on Thursday, a U.S. citizen who had been grabbed and arrested by them after filming and yelling at them said his blood was boiling.
Hipolito, a U.S. citizen, was charged with assault on a federal official by Los Angeles U.S. attorney Bill Essayli for allegedly hitting an agent prior to being tackled. Additionally, representatives of the Department of Homeland Security have stated time and time again that they will make arrests of anyone who tampers with their operations.
When the unnamed agents started holding street vendors close to the intersection of Main and 9th streets downtown, the altercation broke out. Hipolito and other onlookers hurried to record the events and yell at the agents.
Videos seem to show Hipolito swiping back when an agent pulls out a crimson bottle and sprays him with it within inches of his eyes. The officer attempted to avoid the punch and lost his baseball cap, but the footage seen by The Times did not indicate if Hipolito’s hand made contact. According to Hipolito’s family, it was pepper spray, and since he was blind, he did not purposefully touch the agent.
Hipolito appeared in court during a hearing on Thursday, chained and limping, wearing the same outfit he had worn upon his detention. He was freed on $10,000 bond after a federal court ordered his release.
During the same sweep, another lady, Andrea Guadalupe Velez, 32, who is also a citizen of the United States, was charged with assault. Her mother and sister wept in the courtroom as the judge granted her release on $5,000 bond.
According to DHS, assaults against its agents have increased significantly, and those who interfere with their operations put them in danger.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated that Secretary Noem has made it clear that anyone who touches a law enforcement officer would face the harshest possible punishment. ICE law enforcement was unable to apprehend the target illegal alien of their operation because of the efforts of these U.S. citizens.
When a group of agents stopped on 9th Street, the defendants—both of whom are immigrant children—were downtown. The majority wore masks, and it was unclear whose agency many were affiliated with. The U.S. attorney filed a criminal complaint alleging that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wanted to question two people about their legal status.
Agents halted in front of a stall outside the California Mart where a family sold tamales, coffee, champurrado, and pan dulcen; however, the court documents did not identify those people.
California
The lives of the sellers and their families who established a makeshift village at Home Depot in Hollywood are upended when immigration officers arrest dozens of people there.
As the procedures progressed, Velez, a Cal Poly Pomona alumnus, had just been dropped off by her mother and her sister, Estrella Rosas, 17.
In an apparent attempt to stop an agent from capturing the male subject he was pursuing, Velez suddenly crossed the route of the agent, according to the criminal complaint. Velez, who is 4′ 11″, is accused of extending her arms and blocking the agent’s way. It said the agent was hit in the head and chest because he was unable to halt in time.
From the rearview mirror, Velez’s mother, Margarita Flores, was observing. She claimed to have witnessed her daughter tumbling to the ground as a man ran toward her. According to Flores, the men’s automobile had neither registration plates nor identification.
She told Rosas to call the police because she was afraid she was being abducted.
“We didn’t know who these people were, so I called 911 and said they were kidnapping my sister,” Rosas said.
Velez dashed in the direction of deployed LAPD officers.
There was a crowd. They had horns blaring. They were yelling profanities. As one of the agents picked Velez off the ground and brought her to an SUV, they recorded the incident on their cellphones while pointing at the agents. She tucked her knees against her chest.
After being freed on Thursday, Velez stated, “They didn’t identify themselves.” Everything happened so quickly as I was just heading to work.
Gregory Russell, her attorney, claimed that she saw nothing but an officer charging directly at her during the turmoil and thought, “He believes I’m illegal because of the color of my skin.”
He claimed that when the much bigger man shoved her to the ground, she automatically raised her work bag to protect herself.
I felt afraid. She said, “I had no idea where I was going or what was going to happen to me.”
Hipolito had been among the throng of people yelling at the agents.
California
There is a growing conflict between individuals attempting to protect immigrants and immigration officers making arrests on the street. A 20-year-old Walmart employee was taken into custody following a contentious altercation with police in the Pico Rivera suburb of Los Angeles.
He argued with a police vest-wearing agent while standing close to one of the cars as agents attempted to depart.
According to the lawsuit, Hipolito and two other people were ordered to leave the location by an agent known as C.C., but they refused to comply, so he pepper sprayed them. Hipolito then struck C.C. in the face.
Hipolito and a disguised agent wearing a police vest are seen arguing in a shaky video shot from inside a neighboring automobile.
Hipolito continues to hold his cellphone up at the disguised agent despite the man’s attempts to dismiss him by waving his hand for him to go. The agent then briefly backs up toward him after turning away, as if taken aback by Hipolito’s cellphone being so near to his face. A separate close-up video shows him spraying from a bottle directly at Hipolito s face. Although it appears to be out of the camera’s frame, Hipolito appears to swipe or swing back. The agent’s reappearance in the picture without his hat is all that is caught.
They re making it seem like he was the one doing wrong, he was the one violating laws, when on the contrary, a lot of these agents were violating my cousin s rights, saidHipolito scousin Angela Martinez.
According to her cousin, he was blinded after being sprayed by agents.
He was doing that because blind people, who are unable to see, move their hands in front of them to gain steadiness. According to Martinez, he sort of connected with the agent while he was out and about.
There s no further mention in court documents of what happened next, but the videos taken by bystanders show that in the following seconds, agents tackle Hipolito and hold him as he struggles to breathe.
One agent grabs each of his arms, another is atop him with his arm around his neck and the last agent, in an orange shirt, is trying to hold his legs, at one point punching them.
After about 30 seconds, the agent with arm wrapped around his necks pulls away. The one wearing orange lets go of Hipolito s legs and positions himself near the man s head and points a Taser at his shoulder. He doesn t appear to fire it, but the other agents continue to push the man downward as they try to get his arms in handcuffs. Other agents mill around. In the fracas, Hipolito s shoe flies off.
After about a minute, as sirens are screaming and people are shouting, the agent wearing oranges stands up and tries to push the crowd back. He points the Taser at a woman recording and when she doesn t back off, he swipes to grab her phone but misses and turns away.
After around two and a half minutes, they finally get him cuffed and sitting up.
Hipolito is breathing fast and deep. He is hunched over. An agent with a baseball hat and FBI vest pats his heart and appears to be talking to him and trying to calm him down. He wipes Hipolito s eyes with his shirt and holds his back. Hipolito catches his breath. Then the man pulls him up from behind with his arms under his shoulder.
Hipolito stands, an agent on each side. He s wobbly and then his head rocks back and his legs began to shake violently.
The agents sit him on the ground and splash water on his face. Eventually, he is picked up and put in a car.
Ruben Lopez, a use-of-force expert and retired LAPD SWAT lieutenant, said federal agents working on L.A. streets have raised the tension level, with some local agencies normal field operations being mistaken for immigration enforcement.
The anger from the bystanders is a direct result of what people perceive as aggressive tactics, when people come out and grab someone without any identification and face coverings in unmarked vehicles, he said.
The relationship with the community and law enforcement and the community is a delicate balance, he said. A single incident can erode years of public trust and confidence in law enforcement.
Lopez said he especially worried that incidents could potentially result in blue on blue, a term that refers to one agency unknowingly harming another.
Glen Sitwell, a building manager who watched all of this play out from his corner office, said the aggressive posture of the agents took him aback.
If this sh is going on every day, count the days to people start getting killed, he said.
