A federal agent fired his weapon during an immigration enforcement operation in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday morning, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The agency said in an emailed statement that its agents were conducting an operation around 7 a.m. to arrest a man who they said had been “involved in a human smuggling operation.”
The department said that the man, Eduardo Moran Carballo, of El Salvador, had attempted “to evade arrest” and then “rammed law enforcement” with his vehicle. The agency said a federal agent had “fired defensive shots” and feared for his safety. It did not specify which Department of Homeland Security agency the officer worked for.
Mr. Carballo was not hit or injured in the shooting, the department said. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was injured, according to the Homeland Security Department, which did not elaborate on the nature of his injuries or state his condition. Agents took Mr. Carballo into custody.
The department said the operation took place in Compton, Calif., south of Los Angeles, but a local official said it happened in Willowbrook, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.
“This situation is evolving, and more information is forthcoming,” the department said, adding that Mr. Carballo had two prior arrests on accusations of “inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant.”
Hours after the incident, the wreckage of a gray BMW sports car that crashed was on the street near a curb, its airbags deployed and both doors open. Federal agents in tactical gear and carrying long rifles were at the scene, as were sheriff’s deputies. Helicopters hovered overhead as protesters, shouting obscenities at the masked federal agents, began to arrive.
The episode comes during a period of increased national attention on immigration enforcement operations after a woman in Minneapolis, Renee Good, was fatally shot by an ICE officer on Jan. 7. The Trump administration has also started to target Somali immigrants in Maine in another large-scale immigration enforcement operation.
The Trump administration’s national immigration crackdown first ramped up in Southern California — and particularly in many of the heavily Latino suburbs of Los Angeles County — last summer.
Holly Mitchell, who represents the area on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview that she had been briefed on the episode by officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday.
Ms. Mitchell said that a Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement task force action led to a “vehicle pursuit,” which ended at around 7:30 a.m. in Willowbrook. She said she was told that one round was fired, and that no one was hit. The Sheriff’s Department helped to secure the scene, she said, but emphasized that county law enforcement officers were not involved in the immigration enforcement action.
Ms. Mitchell, whose vast district includes many neighborhoods where working-class Latino families have lived for generations, said that the episode on Wednesday appeared to have been carried out with “the same kind of recklessness and lack of regard for basic human rights and true public safety” that she has seen from federal agents for months.
The car chase on Wednesday, she said, took place during the morning rush hour, just as families were taking children to school. She added that the use of lethal force by agents, both in Los Angeles and in other cities, is troubling.
“Fortunately no one was killed,” she said. “It was by sheer luck — I assume they didn’t intend to miss when they fired their firearm, so we were blessed today.”
Ms. Mitchell urged constituents to continue to document any activity they see, if they can do so safely. She echoed officials in Minnesota who have said that such documentation of interactions between federal agents and members of the public could be important evidence in future court cases over the federal government’s tactics.
Rosa Enriquez, 39, who lives in nearby South Gate, was among dozens of people who gathered at the scene. She said she drove there to check on her parents, who live in the area, and to protest the federal agents. She waved a large Mexican flag she said she had used at a previous “No Kings” protest in Los Angeles.
“We’re in Compton,” she said. “We’re so used to living life being cautious, being careful, and this is what we fear the most.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Jill Cowan is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering the forces shaping life in Southern California and throughout the state.
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