Officers with customs and the protection of American borders opened fire on a man who, according to them, struck two officers with his vehicle around 8:40 am on Saturday in San Bernardino.
According to the Ministry of Internal Security, a person refused to leave their vehicle during an attempted traffic stop while targeted immigration operation was held. The agency said that the man “led his car to the officers”, hitting two.
At this stage, the police fired several shots on the vehicle, which had three people inside at the time. No one has been struck. The driver escaped the scene.
While speaking to CBS News Los Angeles, family members inside the vehicle told another story of the incident, saying that the masked agents refused to explain the situation and hit the driver in the head after breaking a window.
After that, the balls began to fly.
“I thought the bullets were going to go through the rear window and hit one of us,” said a man who wanted to be identified only as Martin.
Martin says he was on the rear seat at the time while his brother-in-law was seated in the passenger seat and his stepfather, who is an unauthorized immigrant, led. He took videos and photos of the situation, which he shared with CBS News Los Angeles.
The images shared by Martin showed ball holes outside the vehicle. His video showed an officer breaking the glass on the driver’s seat window and the officer seeming to hit the driver in the face.
Martin did not address the allegation that the driver hit two officers with the vehicle. DHS said two police officers had been injured after being struck, but they did not describe the extent of the injuries.
After the incident, according to a spokesperson for the Inland coalition for the justice of immigrants, the trio returned home.
Martin’s stepfather called the San Bernardino police department when he returned home to point out that masked men tried to shoot him, broke his car window and shot him.
When SBPD officers arrived at home, they found the vehicle damaged and the federal immigration agents had already arrived.
“At that time, it was not clear for which the suspect was sought. By virtue of California Values Act, California’s law enforcement is prohibited from helping federal officials for immigration, our police officers therefore left the scene while the investigation was carried out by the federal authorities,” said the police.
Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice says that federal agents arrived at home around 11 am, where they stayed outside for several hours to “put pressure on the individual to open the door and go out”. They would not have provided a mandate and would not have tried to communicate with the suspect or his family.
Around 1:15 p.m., the SBPD officers were recalled at home by receiving a request for help from agents who declared that a large crowd had formed outside the home when they “wanted to stop the subject for having attacked a federal officer”.
Police have provided crowd control at home, declaring that local police can help federal officials if the agent or public security was in danger.
“In this case, federal agents asked for help during a legal arrest for attacked a federal officer when a crowd created a security problem for potential agents,” the police said. “It was not an arrest linked to immigration, which would be prohibited by Californian law.”
The agents left the house just before 4 p.m., said the IC4IJ declaration.
According to Martin, the man who was wanted by federal agents has been a home and a company in the United States for more than two decades.
“He has been here for 23 years. He has always been a working man. There is no reason why he shouldn’t have obtained his green card a long time ago,” said Martin about his stepfather. “He tried a lot, a lot, several times. (The government has always denied him.”
The man was briefly detained but not arrested because, in the end, the federal agents had no mandate, said Martin. The DHS says that it was released, “despite the subject refusing to comply and injure two officers”, due to “the pro-economic policies of California in action that protect criminals instead of protecting communities”.
The IC4ij says that the man has no criminal record. Martin claims that his family no longer feels safe.
“They will really come back. There is no doubt about it,” said Martin. “This is what they do. Now we are going to look over our shoulder and fear our safety.”
