An armed off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent faces several charges after he allegedly assaulted a Long Beach police officer while resisting arrest in a Shoreline Village parking lot this week, authorities said Friday, July 11.
Isaiah Anthony Hodgson, 29, on Friday pleaded not guilty to several felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from the Monday skirmish, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
Hodgson was allegedly intoxicated and armed with a handgun while inside a restaurant at Shoreline Village sometime on Monday, prosecutors said. He is believed to have entered the women’s restroom and approached a female who saw a handgun and magazine. The woman told the restaurant’s manager while Hodgson left the restaurant.
Outside the restaurant, a security guard saw Hodgson holding a firearm magazine and spotted the firearm in his waistband, prosecutors said. The guard asked Hodgson to leave multiple times and told him that firearms were not permitted on the property.
Officers responded to a call of a person with a gun and “observed Hodgson intoxicated and unwilling to cooperate with their commands as they tried to detain him,” the DA’s office said. Hodgson allegedly became agitated and fought with the officers, injuring one of them.
The extent of the officer’s injuries were not immediately known.
“The conduct exhibited by Mr. Hodgson, a border patrol agent who has the duty to uphold the law and protect its citizens, is unacceptable and deeply troubling” DA Nathan Hochman said in a statement.
Hodgson faces three felony counts of resisting an executive order, one count of battery with injury on a peace officer and misdemeanor counts of exhibiting a concealable firearm in public, having a concealed firearm on person and carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person.
If convicted as charged, Hodgson faces a possible maximum sentence of seven years in state prison.
When asked about the agent’s employment status Friday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said only, “This matter is under investigation.”
Inmate records show Hodgson was arrested just past 11:30 p.m. Monday.
He was released following his first court hearing and was ordered to not possess any firearms, not leave the state of California and attend at least three alcohol counseling meetings per week, according to the DA’s office.