A typical Monday afternoon in Compton was shattered for several neighbors who saw, to their surprise, a drab green military-style vehicle roll up. A person stood in the open hatch wearing fatigues, a helmet and what they said appeared to be body armor. Residents who spoke to The Times said it was an immigration enforcement team using an armored vehicle for a raid in which a family including children was detained.
Video of the June 9 incident reviewed by The Times shows the person in the vehicle is holding a gun with what looks like a paintball hopper protruding from the top, a configuration that has been used to shoot so-called less-lethal munitions including pepper spray balls during protests. At one point, the person points the barrel of the gun down from its vertical position; it’s unclear whether any shots are fired.
The video provides a partial view of the vehicle from across the street. Only the top, its hatch and the armed person are visible, along with another piece of equipment that resembles a wall-breaching tool.
Neighbors who spoke to The Times on Sunday — several of whom asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation — said that the vehicle took down the home’s front gate. Then officers took away five to seven people who were inside, at least two of whom were children, the neighbors said.
It was unclear Sunday what agency might have conducted the action, and witnesses’ claims could not immediately be verified.
Compton is policed by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, which said Sunday evening that “at this time, we are unaware of an incident.” The National Guard referred all inquiries to U.S. Northern Command, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday evening. The White House, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also did not respond to requests for comment.
The location of the raid was a one-story house next to a set of railroad tracks just a few blocks from the runway at Compton-Woodley Airport. On Sunday, colorful Easter decorations were still posted out front next to bright yellow flowers and a faded “Security One” home security placard. A red-and-green Mexico-themed soccer ball sat on the well-tended lawn.
The driveway gate of the waist-high chain-link fence dividing the front yard from the sidewalk was bent and mangled, lashed to a metal fence pole with white rope. The windshield and driver’s side window of a white van in the driveway were smashed, which next-door neighbor Jesse Ramirez said happened during the raid.
Ramirez, 25, said when he got home from work on June 9, family members who were home at the time told him what happened, and a neighbor showed him video of the incident.
“They took our neighbors,” he said. “They came and tore down the fence with one of their armored vehicles.”
Ramirez said five people of Mexican descent — two parents, a third adult, and two teenagers — were detained. None of them has returned.
Across the street, Frank Cervantes, 35, said he was at Chuck E. Cheese when the incident took place but watched it on video captured by his Ring camera. Now, “everyone’s all stressed” in the neighborhood, he said.
“It was like a war vehicle — SWAT-style,” Cervantes said. “That’s horrible, man. It’s almost authoritarian.”
Cervantes lamented what he sees as a waste of resources.
“They need to be near the border fighting fentanyl, what are they doing here?” he said of the raid.
Ramirez said the incident came as a shock to him and his loved ones.
“It’s a bit scary, considering I have family who are immigrants,” he said. “The lengths they’ll go to — they took kids. … That’s traumatic for them to go through.”
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