Federal Agents Deploy Brutal Tactics in LA Immigration Raids

The Intercept

2 days ago

This article includes images of law enforcement violence and medical emergencies.
SInce June 6 , federal agents have embarked on a militarized rampage and terror campaign across the greater Los Angeles area.
Pursuing the Trump administration's daily quota of 3,000 arrests, federal agents have ripped through predominantly Latino cities and neighborhoods. In 'roving patrols,' as the government has described them in court filings, agents without warrants have abducted day laborers, street vendors, car wash workers, and others swept up in the government's dragnet.
Despite the Trump administration's pledge to target 'violent criminals,' the vast majority of those detained do not have criminal records. That has not stopped the government from deploying violence against those in its path.
Throughout the first month of its focused operation in and around Los Angeles, federal agents regularly used force against unarmed individuals, many of them U.S. citizens.
The Intercept analyzed more than a dozen immigration operations since June 6 involving federal agents from a hodgepodge of agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Marshals Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. By reviewing footage and interviewing people who the authorities detained and those who witnessed raids, The Intercept identified several violent patterns.
Agents have aimed firearms and sprayed chemical irritants at onlookers and protesters. They have launched tear gas and flash bang grenades into crowds. They have beaten the people they detain, struck them with batons, and restrained them face down in a prone position, pressing them into the pavement and restricting their abilities to breathe.
Agents often deployed these violent tactics against the targets of immigration raids — people they presumed to be undocumented immigrants. In the majority of cases reviewed for this story, federal agents used force against U.S. citizens who were attempting to document raids or intervene by putting their bodies between the agents and their neighbors.
Legal experts said video evidence shows the government response is disproportionate and a violation of constitutional rights, particularly in cases where bystanders were filming or yelling at agents without intervening.
'There's a pattern of reacting violently and excessively against people that aren't interfering or otherwise causing harm to law enforcement,' said attorney Matthew Borden.
'If I say, 'I don't like the fact that you're in my community and you're kidnapping people or breaking apart families,' I got a right to say that, and the government can't suppress that right,' said Borden, who is representing journalists, legal observers, and protesters injured by federal agents in Paramount and across Southern California, in a lawsuit. 'Once you do, it's like Tiananmen Square.'
The Trump administration defends its practices in the Los Angeles area, claiming that federal agents are under attack and that videos analyzed by The Intercept fail to capture key moments. Federal prosecutors are also filing criminal charges against a growing number of protesters who have confronted agents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said those who attempt to slow ICE operations would be 'prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'
Adrian Martinez sat in his car during his lunch break at Walmart. It was June 17, and videos of ICE raids snatching immigrants off the street flooded his social media feeds. On his way to the bank to get some cash for lunch, Martinez saw a janitor from his work sprinting across the parking lot.
The janitor looked terrified. Behind him was a masked man carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle.
The armed man caught up to the janitor, grabbed him, and started 'manhandling him like very aggressively for no reason,' Martinez told The Intercept.
Martinez drove up to the altercation. By the time he hopped out of the car, more armed agents had emerged from trucks, including some wearing CBP uniforms. He remembered agents cocking their rifles, which Martinez interpreted as an attempt to intimidate him and the growing group of bystanders who had gathered in the parking lot, filming, yelling, and honking their horns.
'They don't give me no explanation, they just started attacking me — for sticking up for a poor man, just using my words.'
'What is he doing? He's a fucking hard worker,' Martinez yelled at agents, according to video recorded by a bystander. Security footage from a nearby business shows Martinez slowly pulling a cart containing a trash can and cleaning supplies, which the janitor had abandoned, in front of a government vehicle. Moments later, an agent approached Martinez, knocked down the trash can, and pushed him to the asphalt.
The bystander video captures a second moment when three armed agents slammed Martinez to the ground. During that scuffle, another agent knocked the bystander's phone out of his hands. The bystander, Oscar Preciado, said the agent also tried to detain him, but he was able to escape.
According to Preciado, as well as security and bystander video, federal agents initiated physical contact with Martinez.
LA County
Walmart employee Adrian Martinez, 20, was taken into custody by federal agents after standing up for a janitorial worker targeted in an immigration raid. Martinez suffered a knee contusion, bruises, and scrapes.
Outcome of raid: Two people detained, including Martinez, a U.S. citizen.
During the arrest, the group of agents wrestled Martinez to the ground, twisting his arm and grabbing him by the neck. At one point, an agent drove his hand into Martinez's neck to force him into a CBP truck.
'I was just confused,' Martinez said. 'They don't give me no explanation, they just started attacking me — for sticking up for a poor man, just using my words.'
He was dragged into custody at around 9 a.m., with his car still running in the parking lot. Martinez, who was born in Huntington Park, insisted to agents that he was a U.S. citizen as they brought him to the basement of a federal building in downtown LA along with detained immigrants.
Martinez's attorneys and relatives didn't know where he was for more than 12 hours. His mother said officials at a federal detention facility initially turned her away, saying her son wasn't there.
'If they're doing that to him in broad daylight, what are they going to do behind closed doors?'
'So many things were going through my head, like, is he OK? What did they do to him?' Martinez's mother, Myra Martinez, told The Intercept. 'Like, if they're doing that to him in broad daylight, what are they going to do behind closed doors?'
Martinez was released after four days in detention on $5,000 bond. While detained, he did not receive medical care for his injuries. He was later diagnosed with a knee contusion and placed in a leg brace. He had bruises and scrapes across his body.
Newly appointed U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California Bill Essayli initially accused Martinez in a statement of 'punching a Border Patrol agent in the face.' In a statement to The Intercept, a DHS spokesperson said one agent was also punched in the arm. But in court filings, prosecutors seemed to walk back those allegations. Martinez was charged with the lesser felony of 'conspiracy to impede' a federal officer, but not of assault.
Attorneys for Martinez with the Miller Law Group called the charge 'trumped up' and said it was used 'to justify the federal agents' violent treatment of Adrian.'
'He did nothing to justify being grabbed by the throat by heavily-armed and masked agents and thrown into a Border Patrol vehicle,' the attorneys said.
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, helped Martinez's attorneys and relatives locate him. Salas acknowledged that community members have responded to the raids with impassioned resistance, but she said their pushback has been justified. It has often been federal agents who initiate violence, she pointed out, roughing up their targets — at times tackling people to the ground or shattering car windows to yank them out.
CHIRLA helped file a July 2 class-action lawsuit against DHS on behalf of individuals detained by immigration authorities. The lawsuit challenges the legality of southern California's recent immigration sweeps, which, according to the complaint, 'look less like lawful arrests and more like brazen, midday kidnappings.'
The complaint lists numerous examples of people being 'chased and pushed to the ground, sometimes even beaten, and then taken away' after they try to avoid agents. Such violence, Salas said, is what community members are fighting.
'They're using their bodies, their words to try to stop something, and that's what they have,' Salas said of protesters objecting to the raids. 'They don't have the guns — let's keep in mind who actually has the ability to deny a person their liberty or their life.'
On Juneteenth, two days after Martinez's arrest, federal agents fanned out across LA for an especially aggressive day of raids targeting department store parking lots. Nearly 40 people were detained.
Among them was electrician Arturo Hermosillo, 36, who is a U.S. citizen. He was driving his company van that morning in the Pacoima neighborhood when he saw masked federal agents surrounding a woman lying on the ground near a Lowe's and Costco, he told The Intercept.
Agents were attempting to detain the woman, a 57-year-old street vendor, when she suffered a heart attack. She was later hospitalized.
Hermosillo recognized her as a fixture in the neighborhood who sells tamales in the same spot every day. He parked his van and began recording. 'I wanted to have video of what was happening to this older lady,' Hermosillo said. 'She's a member of the community.'
Within seconds, two agents tapped on his window, ordering him to move his van and leave.
Hermosillo said he was trying to comply with the order but accidentally backed into a white unmarked car behind him. Agents in tactical gear suddenly swarmed his van. Hermosillo opened his door, trying to explain that he wasn't able to leave and was blocked in. He insisted he wasn't doing anything illegal.
That's when three agents tried to rip Hermosillo out of his van. By this point, bystanders began to record the altercation. One woman streamed it live on TikTok. 'Let him go, he's not doing nothing wrong!' she shouted at the agents. 'Why do you guys act like animals?'
As Hermosillo clung to his steering wheel, agents pulled on his hair, forcefully yanked his arm, grabbed him by the neck, and punched his arms, the livestream footage shows. He recalled one of the agents pulling him by the necklace and shared photos with The Intercept of a red wound encircling his neck.
'I was holding on because I was scared and they were going to pull me out and just throw me straight on the ground,' Hermosillo said.
Eventually overpowering him, the agents slammed Hermosillo onto the pavement, the video shows. As they placed him in handcuffs, one agent knelt on his back.
Neighborhood in LA
Federal agents detained Arturo Hermosillo, a U.S. citizen, who was recording a raid. Agents pulled him from his car as one agent beat him.
Outcome of raid: Nine people detained in Pacoima and nearby San Fernando, including Hermosillo.
He was detained for hours before being released without charges. The squabble left him with bruises along his arms and neck.
That same day, Job Garcia, a 37-year-old graduate student and part-time delivery worker, was picking up an item at a Home Depot in Hollywood when he spotted immigration agents and started filming.
He followed them as they chased workers around the store's parking lot. According to a video Garcia posted on his Instagram, he called out 'Don't tell them anything' in Spanish to two workers being detained. He filmed five agents surrounding a day laborer sitting inside his van and caught one of the agents shattering the van's window on video.
'Are you fucking serious?' Garcia yelled.
Seconds later, several agents wrestled him to the ground and placed him in cuffs.
'You want it, you got it sir, you fucking got it,' one agent yelled as Garcia lay face down on the floor, according to his own recording, obtained and reviewed by The Intercept. 'You want to go to jail, fine, you got it.'
Acknowledging that its agents went after Garcia in part for his speech, DHS told The Intercept he was arrested after he 'verbally harassed and assaulted a Border Patrol agent.' He was released the following day without charges. On July 2, he filed a claim against DHS, seeking $1 million in damages, alleging he was unlawfully arrested and assaulted.
Garcia said agents had pressed their hands against his neck and their knees against his back while lying on the floor. 'I thought, 'This is probably what George Floyd felt,'' he wrote in a post on Instagram following his release, 'and I wondered if this was the end for me because I started to notice a disruption in my breathing.'
Neighborhood in LA
After bystander Job Garcia, a U.S. citizen, recorded federal agents smashing a car window to detain a worker outside a Home Depot, agents tackled him and took him into custody.
Outcome of raid: At least 30 people detained, including Garcia.
Attorney Andrew G. Celli Jr., who reviewed the footage for The Intercept, expressed concern about the violent tactics shown in the videos, including the use of the prone position. Celli said the technique killed one of his clients in an earlier case.
'It can be deadly,' said Celli, a founding partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel who has represented victims in law enforcement brutality cases in New York. 'Ordinary police are trained that it's an extremely dangerous thing to do — it does happen in some circumstances, but it's a massive red flag.'
Even so, federal agents have commonly used the technique when detaining individuals during immigration operations throughout the Los Angeles area. They used the arrest tactic on June 24, when four federal agents piled on top of another U.S. citizen, Luis Hipolito, after he confronted them while they apprehended a street vendor in downtown L.A.
One bystander video shows Hipolito yelling at an agent, then suddenly turning his head away and swinging his arm. His family told the Los Angeles Times that he had been sprayed by a chemical agent and raised his arm in reaction.
Other bystander videos capture subsequent moments. One shows an agent kneeling on Hipolito's back, while another grabbed his neck, and a third agent restrained his arms. A fourth agent pinned his lower body, later punching one of Hipolito's legs. Agents forced Hipolito into a prone position for more than two and a half minutes.
After they cuffed him and sat him upright, one agent could be seen wiping the sweat from his eyes when Hipolito appeared to have a seizure. While he convulsed, agents once again placed him face down on his stomach. First aid guidance advises a seizing person should be placed on their side.
Video: Rabbi Mordechai Teller
Federal agents piled atop Luis Hipolito, a U.S. citizen, in a prone position. After agents sat him up, Hipolito began to convulse. He had confronted agents who were attempting to detain street vendors. The government accused him of assaulting an agent.
Outcome of raid: Two people detained, both U.S. citizens; targets of the raid escaped.
Hipolito was detained and released on $10,000 bond and was charged with assaulting a federal officer.
Agents arrested another U.S. citizen, Andrea Guadalupe Velez, during the incident, accusing her of impeding an agent. Velez, her attorneys, and witnesses dispute the claim. After her release several days later, she said she was targeted for being brown and Latina.
DHS said that the incident involving Hipolito and Velez 'kept ICE law enforcement from arresting the target illegal alien of their operation.'
Days later, on June 29 in the Orange County city of Santa Ana, bystanders recorded Border Patrol agents violently detaining two men. A small crowd gathered at an intersection to demand medical treatment for a detainee who was being led by agents into an unmarked sedan. 'Why would you have to make him bleed?' one man asked them.
The government identified the target of the raid as Apoloniol Arreola-Solario, who officials said had run a quarter-mile before agents apprehended him. DHS told The Intercept 'a mob' had thrown rocks at agents and that one individual tried to prevent Arreola-Solario's capture and another kicked the doors of an agent's vehicle.
Bystander video shows a different scene, in which observers can be seen objecting to the raid but not initiating contact with agents. Rather, several agents are shown charging toward one of the protesters, grabbing him by the neck and slamming him headfirst into the pavement. 'He's a U.S. citizen,' an onlooker said.
Another agent struck a separate victim with a baton several times in the legs while a third agent tackled him to the ground. The baton-wielding agent struck the man once more while he lay on the ground. 'Why are you hitting him?' screamed a woman. 'He's already down.'
Though federal agents involved in the Los Angeles campaign seldom wear uniforms or badges, most carry service weapons. The Intercept documented four instances in a three-day span, from June 18 to June 21, in which agents appeared to aim their firearms at unarmed civilians — in some cases at point-blank range. An additional case arose the following week.
This tally is likely an undercount, as it only includes incidents made public in bystander recordings. An earlier instance on June 11 that was not caught on video took place at a church in Downey, where a pastor reported that a masked agent pointed an assault rifle at her when she approached a federal vehicle. The previous day, a day laborer and green-card holder at a Home Depot in Santa Ana said an agent had held him at gunpoint while asking for his ID.
'Pulling a weapon on an unarmed civilian in a crowded situation is just extremely dangerous.'
While there have been no known cases of agents firing live ammunition during the ongoing operations in Southern California, legal experts and advocates for immigrants fear it's only a matter of time.
The use-of-force policy for immigration officers says an officer 'shall always use the minimum non-deadly force necessary to accomplish the officer's mission' and should only escalate to greater uses of force if 'such higher level of force is warranted by the actions, apparent intentions, and apparent capabilities of the suspect, prisoner, or assailant.'
In the videos showing federal agents pointing guns at civilians, Celli and Borden said the individuals or crowds there presented no legitimate threats to necessitate such an escalation.
'The idea of pointing a firearm at somebody for taking down a license plate number, or refusing to back up in a crowd situation — that's just not appropriate,' Celli said. 'Pulling a weapon on an unarmed civilian in a crowded situation is just extremely dangerous.'
'If you're already amped up on adrenaline,' Borden added, 'it doesn't take very much to pull the trigger.'
DHS did not comment specifically on cases in which agents brandished firearms on unarmed individuals.
On June 17, hours after agents grabbed six workers who were waiting at a bus stop in front of a Winchell's donut shop in Pasadena, a crowd of concerned community members gathered at the site of the abduction. Video of the raid from the donut shop had been circulating online.
Among those who heard of the June 17 raid was Yoselyn Chicas, who was born and raised in Pasadena. While out running errands, she drove by the donut shop to scout whether agents were still in the area. She figured her friends and family, many of whom are in the U.S. without documentation, could use some peace of mind.
She saw a black Dodge Challenger with tinted windows exiting a nearby parking lot, pursued by a small group of people yelling, 'You're a coward — how dare you!' The Challenger pulled in front of Chicas's car. She grabbed her phone and hit record.
LA County
When neighbors arrived at the scene of an earlier immigration raid at a donut shop, a federal agent aimed his firearm at an unarmed man attempting to document his license plate number.
Outcome of raid: Six people detained.
At a red light, a member of the crowd ran into the street to snap a photo of the Challenger's license plate number, which had been obscured by a plastic covering — a possible violation of California traffic law. That's when the driver emerged from the Challenger, dressed in a gray shirt, brown pants, green hat, and a black tactical vest that read 'Police.'
He quickly pulled out what appeared to be a handgun and aimed it at the man, who retreated toward the sidewalk, a video Chicas recorded shows. Unseen in the video was the crowd of protesters — a group of local pastors, attorneys, immigrant rights advocates, and concerned neighbors — gathered down-range from the agent.
'I thought for that moment that the young man was going to get killed,' said Salas, who was among the crowd. She and others had been there as a part of the Los Angeles Raids Rapid Response Network, a coalition of volunteers to protect immigrants and document raids. 'We all saw it — in that instant it just felt like the time froze.'
Chicas said she feared for the man's life but also for her own. A mother of young children, she began to anticipate the worst-case scenario if she were shot. Still she kept filming.
'I was like, regardless, it's going to be on my phone as evidence, when my husband gets my phone he'll see it — they'll be able to send it out and there would be proof that there was no probable cause for him to react in such a dramatic way,' Chicas told The Intercept. 'I was scared.'
After several seconds, the agent holstered his weapon, got back into his car, and drove off into oncoming traffic, running a red light at the busy intersection with his emergency lights on.
Two days later, in Santa Ana, a bystander driving past a market saw four masked federal agents detaining a group of men.
When the onlooker rolled down their window and began to record video, one of the masked agents raised a handgun and pointed it at them, footage shared with The Intercept shows. 'You better get out of here,' another agent yelled. The bystander yelled back, 'Why?' continuing to record, later saying to themself, '¿Qué están llorando?' – 'What are they crying about?'
Orange County
A passerby began recording when they saw agents detaining two men outside a market. One agent pointed a gun at the car. Another agent warned: 'You better get out of here.'
Outcome of raid: Two people detained.
Also in Santa Ana, on June 21, federal agents chased a landscaper, Narciso Barranco, across traffic at an intersection with guns drawn, according to video of the incident. As the agents made chase, one pointed his handgun, holding it sideways, at a bystander's vehicle to halt it from turning into the intersection.
A separate video reviewed by The Intercept showed seven agents surrounding Barranco as he lay face down in a prone position on the asphalt. One agent repeatedly punched Barranco as two others held him down. After they stood him up, another agent pressed a baton against Barranco's throat to force him into a gray SUV.
The video spread widely, drawing widespread condemnation after his children — reportedly current and former U.S. Marines — spoke out against their father's detention.
ICE officials claimed Barranco had assaulted agents with a weed whacker, which contradicts bystander video of the incident. Footage shows Barranco tilting the weed whacker to shield himself from an agent spraying him with a chemical irritant.
Orange County
Federal agents beat Narciso Barranco, a landscaper and father of three, while pinning him down. Agents also brandished firearms at bystanders and sprayed a chemical substance.
Outcome of raid: One person detained.
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that agents used 'the minimum amount of force necessary' during this arrest.
That same day, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westlake, federal agents raided a Home Depot. The store had been the target of the larger June 6 raid in which federal agents abducted dozens of day laborers. Since then, organizers with the LA Tenants Union–Koreatown worked shifts outside the shop to deter raids and spread awareness of immigrants' rights.
When they saw federal agents return on June 21, volunteers and concerned neighbors sprung to action: recording the raid, getting names of two workers who were being detained, and attempting to block the federal vehicles from leaving the area.
A federal agent wearing a tactical vest, with a black neck gaiter pulled over his mouth and nose, aimed his handgun at point-blank range at two teenage girls who agents were attempting to detain, according to video shared with The Intercept.
Neighborhood in LA
While a small crowd of community members recorded and confronted an immigration raid outside a Home Depot, a federal agent aimed a firearm at them. Another sprayed a chemical substance.
Outcome of raid: Two people detained.
The girls managed to escape when one of the agents' SUVs began rolling forward, according to witnesses. Video from the scene suggests the driver had forgotten to place the vehicle in park.
Agents continued the practice of brandishing firearms on June 27 in nearby Historic Filipinotown, where one pointed a firearm at a motorist in a red pickup truck, threatening, 'Don't fucking move — I'll fucking shoot you,' before lowering his gun and letting the motorist drive away.
After community members protested a raid at a car wash in the southeast LA County cities of Bell and Maywood on June 20, the Trump administration claimed its agents 'were violently targeted during lawful operations,' posting photos of trucks with broken windows on X.
Missing from the post was any acknowledgment that federal agents had deployed tear gas in Bell and flash bang grenades in Maywood on crowds that had gathered to protest or film immigration operations. Over the last month, such tactics have become a common method to clear the way for immigration operations.
Agents fired tear gas at about half a dozen people in Pico Rivera, in the same shopping plaza where Martinez was detained; at bystanders in Ladera Heights on June 22, after detaining a vendor who clung to a tree to try and avoid arrest; and at bystanders in downtown LA after nabbing a fruit seller on June 27.
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