Tensions erupt when the federal government arrested another citizen to interfere in the raid

Adrian Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart employee, returned from a break Tuesday when he saw Border Patrol agents clean Pico Rivera’s shopping mall parking lot by workers. As other passers-by yelled, he jumped out of the car, pushed the man’s garbage can in front of the car, and shouted at their horn.

Surveillance and viewer videos were captured on the spot and played looped in a social media feed, showing an agent who was eager to Martinez and pushed him to the ground. He stood up, and there was more push, and then he exchanged angry words with the masked officer wearing a rifle before the other agents flocked to push him down and dragged him to their truck.

“What is he doing? He’s AF-hardman,” Martinez yelled, with more agents arriving, some in plain clothes, pushing him and forcibly arresting him.

Bill Essayli, a senior Los Angeles prosecutor, posted on X that Martinez was “arrested on charges of assaulting the Border Patrol after he tried to hinder his immigration enforcement action.”

The so-called video recording is not yet clear. One could hear a man yelling, “He’s an American citizen, brother,” as agents pushed Martinez into the car. In the confrontation video, when others quarrel with Martinez, they see and hear a broker’s gun.

Martinez is one of a handful of U.S. citizens and has received widespread attention in the past two weeks when immigration officials have been arrested or detained.

Earlier this month, Essayli accused union leader David Huerta of conspiring to block an officer after a raid in downtown Los Angeles. A pregnant woman from Torrance stood between the agent and the car with her husband. In Montebello, last week, Javier Ramirez, a U.S. citizen working in a trailer tract was arrested last week in Montebello. They also detained and questioned another U.S. citizen, Brian Gavidia, and pushed him onto the fence because they asked him what hospital he was born in.

Confrontation has exacerbated tensions in most Latino enclaves in Los Angeles County, with federal agents carrying out most raids. The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for immigration and customs enforcement and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said its officials are increasingly threatened as they try to enforce the law.

Many in the community think this is a moral urgent need.

Martinez’s mom Myra Villareal said in some ways that her son wasn’t surprised to try to help. He often brings stray animals in need of home.

“If someone gets hurt, he wants to be the first person there,” said his sister Samantha Villareal.

“I’m going to give justice for him,” his mom added. “What happened to him was wrong. He did nothing wrong. I believe he was talking. Everyone has the right to speak. You know, free speech.”

She said she could not find Martinez for a few hours after her arrest. At about midnight, she finally confirmed that he was detained in the city. She talked to him Wednesday afternoon.

In a statement to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection said the video “lack of critical moments, don’t tell the whole story.”

The statement said when they arrested an undocumented immigrant in the Lowe store in the same square, the hostile group they tried to interfere with their duties “in the face of a hostile group trying to interfere with the border patrol of their duties.”

One agent allegedly punched in the face and another agent was hit in the arm by the team members. The case against Martinez has been submitted to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Prosecutors to stop or beat federal officials, the statement said. As of Wednesday night, there were no complaints.

“Agents and officials from the Bureau of Homeland Security and partner agents continue to face the face of hostile groups that interfere with their ability to perform their duties,” the statement reads. “This intervention puts those arrested, agents and communities at risk. Interference in federal law enforcement is a crime and a felony, both the culprit.”

Greg Bovino, head of the U.S. Border Patrol Department, doubled his efforts when hundreds of agents were carrying scans in Southern California.

He posted on X: “Again, a citizen in Pico Rivera, California is being arrested. Don’t say our promise,” he linked to Essayli’s post. “This topic just captures the federal case of federal attacks on federal agents. Don’t attack.”

Oscar Preciado, who recorded the video live, delayed the charge, saying: “They tried to spin it and make it look like [Martinez] When they were always invaders, they were always invaders. ”

In the Montebello raid, Ramirez was charged with federal criminal proceedings for attacking, resisting or obstructing federal officers. Authorities claimed he was trying to hide himself and then ran to the trailerhouse exit, refusing to answer questions about his identity and citizenship. They also claimed he pushed an agent.

His lawyer, Tomas de Jesus, denied the allegations and noted that Ramirez was “the victim, not the invader.”

Targeted city officials are bringing up banners about agent tactics.

Montebello Mayor Salvador Melendez said he watched another U.S. citizen’s video was questioned and called the situation “very frustrating.”

“There doesn’t seem to be due process,” he said. “They are looking for a specific look, which is the expression of our Latino community, our immigrant community. They ask questions afterwards. … This is not a country we all know, people have personal rights and protections.”

Rep. Linda T. Sánchez (D-Whittier), representing the region, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Arti on Wednesday. General Pam Bondi and Todd Lyons, acting director of Todd Lyons, said she was seriously concerned about Martinez’s arrest and detention. She said the incident appeared to be a violation of civil rights law.

“What I deeply troubled is that a U.S. citizen who works at Walmart supports his family and is in all respects an upright member of his community and continues to be detained by federal government,” she wrote.

She asked them to provide program documents and any warrants and review institutions and personnel related to the “violent arrest and unconstitutional detention of Mr. Hernandez”.

“We are increasingly concerned about the nature and tone of these recent actions. Reports on enhanced enforcement strategies, lack of authority to cease and seemingly targeting actions to specific communities have attracted serious concerns about comparison, fairness and due process,” Pico Rivera City Manager Steve Carmona said in a statement Tuesday.

The videos sparked anger and highlighted the growing stir between the two sides. Advocates of immigration are chasing agents from nearby to nearby. The application pops up. Nextdoor and Ring Blare warn the raided neighbors. When they spotted unannounced immigration operations on the streets, crowds and live streamers gathered.

Dozens, including Martinez’s friends, gathered at Pico Rivera on Tuesday night in protest of immigration operations. They shouted “Ice on Ice”, waving the flags of Mexico and the United States.

Preciado, a 33-year-old Instacart worker, filmed a video of the melee in the parking lot Tuesday morning. He ran to the scene after seeing the commotion of three Border Patrol vehicles and three unmarked vehicles.

In his video, Preciado asks and curses the agent as others arrive and jumps out of the unmarked truck with a rifle.

“You can hear one of the guys’ gunshots…he’s pointing it at us and telling us to escape.”

By then, several masked agents wearing guns – some with camouflage and several in plain clothes – had already taken Vivaldo Montes Herrera, a man Martinez, who tried to defend.

According to his wife, Montes Herrera has lived in the United States for 27 years.

Priardo said the agents also grabbed him, and put their hands on their neck.

“That was when I told him that I was a U.S. citizen and was exercising the right to record,” Priardo said. “That was when that guy snatched the phone from me.”

A video shows his cell phone being knocked to the ground. Preyado said his screen protector collapsed from the impact.

He said shortly afterwards that four or five men took Martinez (to the ground).

“Maybe this guy weighs about 100 pounds. He doesn’t need five people to try to solve him and do all of these things to him,” Priardo said. “You can see them twisting his arms, grabbing his neck, grabbing the top of him.”

“This is not normal. It shouldn’t be normal at all,” he said. “These guys are armed and dressed as if they’re going to be in war, to American citizens, just trying to come and work for people.”

Mont is with his daughter.

(Claudia Mejia)

On Wednesday, Claudia Mejia, wife of Montes Herrera, said she still doesn’t know where her husband is. He was able to call her briefly after being arrested.

“I’m migrating agarro”, he told her to take care of her nearly 2-year-old daughter.

Usually, when he returns to South Los Angeles from about 3 p.m., his daughter is excitedly waiting for him to say hello at the door. He never arrived.

The girl cried in the background Wednesday as Mejia described her husband as “dedicated to his work and our home.”

A playful father, her husband is usually the one who lets the baby go to bed. As he disappeared, his wife said she had put one of his shirt on the baby’s pillow so the little girl could fall asleep in one of his pieces.

“So she knew her father was there,” Meggie said. “Tell me what he does is so bad or so harmful, and let them take him like they do.”