As two masked men dragged her into an unmarked SUV, Andrea Velez tried to focus on details she might later remember \u2013 one man\u2019s red shirt, the car\u2019s leather seats, a black backpack inside.<\/p>\n
At 9.20am on 24 June in downtown Los Angeles<\/a>, the 32-year-old was heading into work at a footwear company when the men in gator masks jumped out of their car and started chasing vendors and other people on the street, she recalled. As people fled, Velez froze and held on to her bag.<\/p>\n Suddenly, she recalled, one of the men slammed her to the ground and placed her into his car. The men had \u201cPolice\u201d vests, but otherwise were in plainclothes and didn\u2019t identify themselves. She didn\u2019t know why they had taken her.<\/p>\n Andrea Velez was carried by Ice officers during her arrest.<\/a>Andrea Velez was carried by Ice officers during her arrest.<\/p>\n The men, it turned out, were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deportation officers. They were looking to question people about \u201cwhether they were lawfully present\u201d in the US, an agent later wrote. Velez is a US citizen who grew up in downtown, not far from the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just came out ready to attack anyone,\u201d said Velez, in her first interview since her arrest<\/a>. \u201cI thought they were kidnapping me.\u201d<\/p>\n A day after her arrest, the Department of Justice charged Velez with assaulting an officer, which could carry a 20-year sentence. The claim was shocking to Velez, who is 4ft 11in and said she had not laid hands on anyone.<\/p>\n She is one of many southern California residents swept up as the Trump administration has aggressively jailed and prosecuted<\/a> protesters<\/a>, as well as civilians who film<\/a> and object<\/a> to Ice arrests and bystanders<\/a> caught up in haphazard raids.<\/p>\n Ice detained<\/a> more than 2,000 immigrants in the region in June. Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed US attorney for the region, has prosecuted at least 18 people on claims they interfered with immigration arrests, with most defendants accused of assault. Prosecutors have been forced to dismiss at least five of those felony cases, including the one against Velez. The Guardian revealed last week that the justice department also dropped felony assault cases against four anti-Ice demonstrators after officers made false and misleading statements<\/a> about events captured on film.<\/p>\n Footage shows Andrea Velez being pulled into a car by Ice agents.<\/a>Footage shows Andrea Velez being pulled into a car by Ice agents.\u2018She was just standing there\u2019<\/p>\n Before her arrest, Velez was not protesting against Ice \u2013 she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, she said. The graduate of the local Cal Poly Pomona university and lifelong LA resident said her mother and sister had dropped her off by her office just as Ice officers arrived at the intersection.<\/p>\n After she was forced into the Ice agents\u2019 car, she spotted Los Angeles police department (LAPD) officers, left the vehicle and ran toward them, she said: \u201cI thought they would help me.\u201d<\/p>\n She told an LAPD officer she thought the men were kidnapping her: \u201cIf I did something wrong, I\u2019d rather have you arrest me. I trust people with uniforms.\u201d<\/p>\n Bystander footage taken from a nearby building shows what happened next: an LAPD officer holds on to Velez as one of the Ice agents runs up and handcuffs her. She does not appear to resist, but the Ice officer picks her up and carries her off the ground across the street. In another clip, a witness is heard saying, \u201cThis girl was just standing there \u2026 they are causing chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n A third video shows LAPD shielding the Ice officers from civilians filming and protesting about her arrest. Velez is seen trying to give her mother\u2019s phone number to a bystander.<\/p>\n She later learned her mother and 17-year-old sister had witnessed the incident, but felt powerless to intervene.<\/p>\n Back in the Ice agents\u2019 car, Velez said the officer driving appeared furious about how the incident had played out: \u201cHe was screaming in rage.\u201d<\/p>\n She overheard him on the phone discussing \u201chow many bodies they had gotten\u201d, she said, and referring to her as an \u201calleged US citizen\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2018They make it seem like we\u2019re \u2026 criminals\u2019<\/p>\n Velez and Luis Hipolito, a 23-year-old man later charged as her co-defendant, were taken to a parking structure. Video<\/a> of Hipolito\u2019s arrest later published by the LA Times showed four agents had aggressively detained him by piling on top of him and using pepper spray. As the two waited to be processed, Velez said she saw his face was swollen, he was having trouble seeing, his shirt was bloody and he appeared to be convulsing and hyperventilating.<\/p>\n His requests for medical attention were initially denied, she said: \u201cHe was in pain, but they were like: \u2018It\u2019s no big deal, you will get over it.\u2019\u201d Even as he struggled, he tried to comfort her: \u201cHe was making me feel safe.\u201d Eventually, he was taken away in an ambulance, she said. Meanwhile, she saw ambulances going in and out of the federal jail nearby, which frightened her.<\/p>\n She said officers later forced her to pose for a photo where several of them stood in a line holding her with their backs to the camera, an unusual mugshot setup that has since become commonplace<\/a> for DHS<\/a> press releases and X.com posts: \u201cThey make it seem like we\u2019re really bad criminals, the worst of the worst, when we\u2019re just regular people.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrea Velez, a lifelong LA resident, was jailed by Ice. Photograph: Andrea Velez<\/p>\n Velez was placed in the Metropolitan detention center, the downtown federal jail that has become the site of protests<\/a>. There, other incarcerated women took care of her.<\/p>\n Staff did not give her water and she learned from other residents that she had to buy a cup, but having been detained just hours before, she had no money on her account. She also couldn\u2019t buy utensils to eat. One woman on her way out donated her cup and spork to Velez.<\/p>\n After two nights in jail, she was brought to court on assault charges.<\/p>\n In an affidavit filed by the justice department, Joseph Arko, an agent working for a homeland security taskforce investigating \u201cimmigration crimes\u201d, said the Ice officers had stopped in downtown to \u201cquestion two individuals about whether they were lawfully present\u201d in the US. As one individual fled, one of the officers alleged Velez \u201cstepp[ed] into his path and extend[ed] one of her arms in an apparent effort to prevent him from apprehending the male\u201d, Arko summarized. The officer claimed she was so \u201cabrupt\u201d, \u201che could not stop his momentum\u201d and her arm \u201cstruck\u201d him in the face.<\/p>\n Velez was stunned to read the allegations: \u201cI never hit anyone. I\u2019ve never hurt anybody, ever. Everyone who knows me knows the kind of person I am. I\u2019m quiet, reserved, always doing the right thing, always following rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Sixteen days after her arrest, the justice department moved to dismiss the charges against her.<\/p>\n Velez\u2019s lawyer, Diane Bass, said she had requested body-worn footage and witness statements before the dismissal: \u201cI never got them. That tells me they did not have the evidence they needed and this was a false and unlawful arrest. It is a shocking and disgusting travesty of justice, and no human, never mind an American citizen, should ever be treated like that.\u201d<\/p>\n The justice department, US attorney\u2019s office, Ice and the DHS did not respond to detailed inquiries about Velez\u2019s case. A spokesperson for the bureau of prisons, which runs the jail, did not respond to questions about her account, saying in an email its mission is to \u201coperate facilities that are safe, secure, and humane\u201d.<\/p>\n The LAPD said in a statement<\/a> after Velez\u2019s arrest that officers initially responded to the area due to 911 calls about a \u201cpossible kidnapping\u201d and that it was \u201cnot involved\u201d in her detention. The department said its role on scene was \u201cmaintaining order\u201d, and a spokesperson last week declined to comment further on her case, pointing to an earlier statement saying the LAPD was \u201cnot involved in civil immigration enforcement\u201d.<\/p>\n Other detained citizens are still fighting their charges, including Hipolito, whose attorney did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n \u2018What they were doing was wrong\u2019<\/p>\n Adrian Martinez, 20, was jailed on 17 June while immigration officers were conducting \u201croving patrol duties\u201d in Pico Rivera, a 90% Latino city in south-east LA. On break outside his job at Walmart, he saw border patrol agents moving to detain an older janitor. The agents, records showed, targeted the custodial worker after he started running away from them.<\/p>\n Witness footage shows a masked, plainclothes officer with an assault rifle shoving Martinez, who is heard saying the man they are detaining is a \u201chard worker\u201d. At least five officers end up pushing<\/a> Martinez to the ground and grabbing him by the neck as they force him into their car, the footage shows. Essayli, the US attorney, posted Martinez\u2019s photo<\/a> on social media the following day, saying he was arrested for \u201cpunching a border patrol agent in the face\u201d. The footage does not show him punching an officer.<\/p>\n CCTV footage from Alfredo Gonzalez, of Aguas Tijuana\u2019s Juice Bar, shows a plainclothes officer shoving Martinez to the ground.<\/a>CCTV footage from Alfredo Gonzalez, of Aguas Tijuana\u2019s Juice Bar, shows a plainclothes officer showing Martinez to the ground.<\/p>\n Essayli\u2019s office did not, however, charge Martinez with assault, but rather \u201cconspiracy to impede a federal officer\u201d. The justice department complaint included no reference to punching. Still, Greg Bovino, border patrol chief for parts of southern California, falsely claimed<\/a> on X.com that Martinez \u201ccaught a federal case for assault\u201d.<\/p>\n Essayli\u2019s office did not respond to inquiries about Martinez\u2019s case.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to speak up for that guy, it was not right, it was like they were kidnapping him,\u201d Martinez told the Guardian. \u201cWhat they were doing was wrong. They were bothering a poor old man who was just working \u2026 I was just using words and they started attacking me.\u201d<\/p>\n Adrian Martinez was taken to a parking structure where officers tried to get him to admit to assault, he said. Photograph: Courtesy of Randall de Leon\/Miller Law Group<\/p>\n Martinez was taken to a parking structure by the federal jail where, he said, he was held for hours. Officers would not let him call his mother, he said. \u201cThey were not believing me when I said I was a US citizen.\u201d He said he was most worried about his family not knowing his whereabouts and anxious about his father\u2019s car, which he left at work.<\/p>\n When officers interrogated him at the parking structure, they tried to get him to admit to assault, he said. \u201cI never put my hands on anybody. Why is my own government lying saying I tried to assault someone? It\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez struggled with officers before being forced into a car.<\/a>Martinez struggled with officers before being forced into a car.<\/p>\n Martinez\u2019s knee, shoulders and back were injured and bruised from the arrest, made worse by sleeping on a metal bed in jail for three days, he added.<\/p>\n Weeks after the incident, KCAL News reported<\/a> that one of the border patrol agents involved in Martinez\u2019s arrest, Isaiah Hodgson, had himself been arrested. The LA district attorney said<\/a> on 7 July that Hodgson, 29, was off-duty and intoxicated at a restaurant when he entered a woman\u2019s bathroom and then refused to leave the business when security told him guns were not allowed on the property. He was charged with several crimes, including resisting arrest, felony battery of an officer and exhibiting a firearm in public.<\/p>\n Martinez\u2019s attorneys said they were still investigating Hodgson\u2019s exact involvement in Martinez\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t wish bad on him and I pray for his family,\u201d Martinez said of the border patrol agent\u2019s arrest. \u201cBut it just shows their abuse of power. He felt like he had a right to have his firearm in a restaurant while he\u2019s not even on duty.\u201d<\/p>\n Jaime Ruiz, a border patrol spokesperson, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. Hodgson\u2019s attorneys did not respond to inquiries.<\/p>\n