Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday denied hitting a cyclist with a car in Long Beach, Calif., before detaining him.
But video footage of the moments before the interaction and an account shared publicly by the man’s daughter offer a different story.
Footage obtained by The New York Times shows the moment an S.U.V. driving the wrong way down a one-way street swerves toward an oncoming bicyclist. An officer jumps out, appearing to draw a weapon that is immediately trained on the rider.
The man on the bike, Ricardo Gonzalez, is an American citizen, according to his daughter, Leslie Gonzalez. She has said on social media that her father was struck by the vehicle.
Mr. Gonzalez has worked for the city of Long Beach, according to the mayor, Rex Richardson, who has submitted a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, calling for an independent investigation into the agents’ treatment of Mr. Gonzalez and the overall operation.
Mr. Gonzalez had called 911 at one point on Saturday, the mayor also said. He did not have details about how the altercation unfolded, and it was not clear what, if any, interaction Mr. Gonzalez had with ICE agents before the moments shown on video.
Mr. Gonzalez did not respond to requests for an interview, and Ms. Gonzalez, who initially posted about the encounter on Instagram, also declined to comment further, citing concerns about her family’s safety.
After being confronted by agents, Mr. Gonzalez was “tased” and pinned to the ground, his daughter wrote on Instagram.
In the video footage, Mr. Gonzalez can be heard yelling. “You hit me with your car. I’m a U.S. citizen!” he says, using several expletives.
Mr. Gonzalez was later taken to a hospital for his injuries, the Long Beach police said. The police was not involved in immigration enforcement and did not make any arrests at the scene, the department added. It said its officers were called in for backup by ICE, which had reported that vehicles were being vandalized and that a person needed medical attention. The extent of Mr. Gonzalez’s injuries was not clear on Tuesday.
In its statement, a spokesperson for ICE said the agency had been conducting a targeted operation to arrest a “criminal illegal alien.” The agency did not say whether it thought Mr. Gonzalez was that person. The agency also said its officers had used “the minimum amount of force.”
“ICE did NOT hit an individual on a bike. An individual was arrested after he smashed the mirror of a government vehicle,” the spokesperson wrote.
ICE described the man, whom the spokesperson did not name, as a “rioter.”
The agency said it was investigating charges for “damage to a government vehicle,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that “anti-ICE agitators attempted to impede operations, threaten officers and damage government vehicles despite officers giving lawful commands.”
In many previous violent encounters involving ICE, video footage has appeared to contradict accounts by the agency and other federal officials. In January, President Trump and other members of his administration described how Renee Good, a U.S. citizen was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis that month, had “weaponized her vehicle” against the federal agent who shot her. Video footage from the scene later revealed no evidence that Ms. Good had run over the agent with her car.
In a similar incident later in January, video footage of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti revealed inconsistencies between those clips and statements from the Trump administration, including Kristi Noem, who was then homeland security secretary.
Also in January, following an ICE shooting of an immigrant in Minnesota, the agency said the man had violently assaulted a federal officer. Video footage that emerged later did not show such an attack.
Sherman Austin, an I.T. engineer who lives in Long Beach, filmed several videos at the scene on Saturday in the Southern California neighborhood. Mr. Austin, who is 43 and founded an ICE tip network on social media in 2017, said he had been in the area with members of Long Beach Rapid Response, a community group that alerts locals about ICE raids. The group was responding to rumors of unmarked vehicles in the area, which they quickly confirmed.
Mr. Austin said he was warning neighbors when he saw a vehicle speed away down a neighborhood street. He followed that car, which led him to Mr. Gonzalez who was, at that point, already pinned to the ground, Mr. Austin said.
In his videos, Mr. Austin also captured footage of a woman being handcuffed by ICE officers and placed into a car.
“That’s my wife, and that’s a U.S. citizen,” a man is seen yelling in one of the videos, using expletives. The identity of the woman was not clear on Tuesday, and Mr. Austin said he did not know what happened to her.
The neighborhood street quickly became chaotic, as people started yelling at ICE agents and asking local police to intervene.
Mr. Richardson, the mayor, has demanded that ICE agents be taken off assignments during any investigation and that the findings be made public.
“People are upset and outraged, and they should be,” the mayor said in a phone call on Monday.
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
The post ICE Says It Didn’t Hit a Biker With a Car. Video Raises Questions. appeared first on New York Times.
