On Wednesday, federal officers rammed and trapped a white sedan in Boyle Heights. Inside were a man, a woman, and a child. The driving guy was taken away by agents, but the woman and child were left behind.
Officer Tony Im, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said that officers went to the scene of the accident to look into it. All other questions were sent to the Department of Homeland Security, he said.
The office talked about what happened in a post on social media Wednesday afternoon.
“This wasn’t a hit-and-run.” The department wrote on X, “This was a targeted arrest of a violent rioter who punched a CBP officer.” CBP stands for Customs and Border Patrol. “Christian Damian Cerno-Camacho tried to get away when Homeland Security Investigations tried to arrest him for the assault.” In the end, he was caught and taken into custody.
When police arrived at the scene in the 3700 block of Whittier Boulevard on Wednesday morning, they found a woman who refused medical care.
A video of the accident showed two SUVs blocking the Mercedes as it turned right. The second SUV pushed its bumper into the car before federal agents jumped out with guns drawn.
Video showed that some kind of chemical shots were fired at the car after the agents got out of their cars and the car stopped. The driver then got out of the car and went to the back of one of the agents’ cars, where he was arrested.
A video of the accident showed two SUVs blocking the Mercedes as it turned right. The second SUV pushed its bumper into the car before federal agents jumped out with guns drawn.
Video showed that some kind of chemical shots were fired at the car after the agents got out of their cars and the car stopped. The driver then got out of the car and went to the back of one of the agents’ cars, where he was arrested.
Homeland Security said that police officers were facing a huge rise in “assaults against them” and were putting their lives at risk to catch “murderers, rapists, and gang members.”
“It’s clear what Secretary [Kristi] Noem wants to say to the LA rioters,” the post said. “You’re not going to stop us or slow us down.” The law will still be enforced by ICE and our other federal law enforcement partners. “And if you touch a police officer, you will be charged with every crime under the law.”
A man was arrested by federal police in Boyle Heights hours earlier for allegedly assaulting a police officer. The neighborhood felt tense.
When John Lopez got to work this morning at City of Angels Fire Protection on Whittier Boulevard, he saw what looked like a car accident in front of the shop. He went outside and saw a car stuck between two trucks. Behind the car, a cloud of smoke that he couldn’t identify rose up.
Lopez said, “At first I thought it might be ICE, but I didn’t think it was because they wouldn’t do that for regular people, like pin them.” Lopez said, “That’s scary to think about because there were kids in that car.”
People who saw the arrest say that police spread a “chemical-smelling” smoke near the car while the woman and child were still inside. What the smoke was is not clear.
The woman in Cerno-Camacho’s car got out with her child and ran into a nearby food store.
A guy who works at that store but didn’t want to be named said that she and her child were stuck there for almost three hours before family came and picked them up.
The man told The Times in Spanish, “She looked scared.” “The smoke covered the whole car.”
Tony Meddina, who owns a diner across the street, said that run-ins with federal agents have left Boyle Heights, which is mostly made up of Latinos, with permanent scars.
Families aren’t coming out as much as they used to. Meddina said, “I live in East L.A., and both there and here [in Boyle Heights] are just very quiet.”
