Some Encinitas residents say they were scared and confused seeing heavily armed federal agents \u2013 including Border Patrol\u2019s specialized tactical unit \u2013 descend on a busy shopping center to make an arrest Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think right now we are seeing authoritarian tendencies,\u201d one witness said. \u201cWhen you have masked individuals in your parking lot in full battle tactical gear, I don’t know anything else that it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really just very alarming thing to witness in little Encinitas,\u201d another added. Both asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n
Videos of the scene show agents in unmarked vehicles, some in masks, some with K9s and others carrying long rifles as they walked through the parking lot of a retail center and gas station off Leucadia Boulevard and El Camino Real and searched a wooded area nearby. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat agency are you with?\u201d one witness asks. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not with ICE, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re asking,\u201d responds an agent wearing a helmet, camouflage fatigues and carrying a rifle.<\/p>\n
In a separate video, another witness asks an agent if he\u2019s with ICE, to which he says he\u2019s not, but does not respond when asked which department.<\/p>\n
One agent\u2019s vest reads \u201cBORTAC,\u201d which is Border Patrol\u2019s tactical unit, like the agency\u2019s SWAT team.<\/p>\n
Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that ICE and the U.S. Marshal Service were “attempting to apprehend an illegal alien\u201d at around 7:45 a.m. when the individual rammed one of their vehicles and fled on foot into a densely wooded area nearby.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video of the incident obtained by NBC San Diego shows four SUVs and trucks attempt to box a sedan in. The driver of that sedan can be seen hitting one of those SUVs in what appears to be an attempt to escape, then continuing to drive before a fifth SUV blocks it, and the driver runs across Leucadia Boulevard into the trees.<\/p>\n
CBP said ICE requested BORTAC\u2019s help in searching the area. Witnesses said the agents appeared to leave without making an arrest by around 10 a.m., but CBP said the person was apprehended without incident. It\u2019s not clear if the arrest was made in that search, or after.<\/p>\n
ICE said in a statement that the man taken into custody was from Mexico, deported twice before and has a final order of removal from 2019. The agency said he will remain in ICE custody pending his removal from the country, adding, \u201cUnder President Trump and Secretary Mullin, our message is clear: if you come into our country illegally and break our laws, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why you need such a show of force,\u201d one witness said, adding that he did not believe the response matched the level of threat. \u201cI\u2019m pretty white. Would the response be the same with me? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and another witness said they were confused in part because the agents didn\u2019t warn them or any members of the public of any danger. But they wondered \u2013 if it was not dangerous enough to merit a warning \u2013 why did it merit such a large response?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really felt like living in a militarized state kind of thing,\u201d one said, adding, \u201cIt felt reminiscent of some of what we’ve seen in other parts of the country that have resulted in people losing their lives. And I don’t want that coming to Encinitas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of had the realization that, you know, if there\u2019s a shootout, we\u2019re standing right next to gas pumps,\u201d that witness continued. \u201cIt just started to feel really unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t like an intellectual thing that we\u2019re seeing in other cities,\u201d the other said, pointing to high-profile operations like those in Chicago, and Minneapolis, where agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens. \u201cIt\u2019s happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if they had a message for the federal agencies who deployed those agents to the shopping center, one witness said, \u201cGet out of Encinitas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a percentage of people who do support what they are doing. That’s their prerogative,\u201d the witness continued. \u201cBut by and large, Encinitas does not want this happening in our town.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know how you make the claim that you’re making things safer for Encinitans,\u201d said the other. \u201cWe don’t want you here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some Encinitas residents say they were scared and confused seeing heavily armed federal agents \u2013 including Border Patrol\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1022999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,31265,32310,5410,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1022998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-customs-and-border-protection","tag-encinitas","tag-ice","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117155892158516292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}