Adrian Martinez had clocked out for a lunch break from his Walmart job in the Pico Rivera Towne Center on June 17 when a man ran past him followed closely by an armed, masked agent.
When he saw the agent grab and “man handle” the janitor, Martinez said he turned his car around, parked and jumped out, leaving the vehicle running and the door open. He joined a growing group of people standing up for the man and telling the agents that they were acting too violently. Martinez told the agents that they were intimidating the man and goading him to run, rather than identifying themselves and explaining what was happening.
“There’s no need for all that aggressive force and for people to get treated like that,” Martinez said. “I just want everyone to realize that what they’re doing is wrong and … they could do it in so many different ways.”
Eventually, agents detained Martinez, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen. Videos of the altercation and immigration raids in Pico Rivera on June 17 prompted more than 150 community members to protest outside City Hall and Towne Center and a response from city manager Steve Carmona.
Federal officials, including U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles area Bill Essayli, claimed Martinez assaulted a federal officer. A criminal complaint dated June 19, which included sworn testimony from a Homeland Security Investigations agent, didn’t mention previous claims that Martinez had punched or hit an agent. Security footage from a nearby juice bar also didn’t show the alleged altercation, though at some points Martinez wasn’t visible in the video.
“I was just confused because all I remember is speaking up for that man and them attacking me,” Martinez said of federal immigration authorities claiming he assaulted one of their agents.
Martinez was instead charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer and was released on $5,000 bail on June 20. No plea was taken during his appearance in a Los Angeles federal court. An arraignment is scheduled for July 17 at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown L.A.
Attorneys with the Miller Law Group representing Martinez said there are no grounds for the conspiracy charge, as Martinez didn’t know the detained man he stood up for.
“This is clearly a trumped-up charge filed to justify the federal agents’ violent treatment of Adrian,” his lawyers said in a statement.
Border Patrol agents were in the shopping center parking lot around 8:45 a.m. when they saw two people run from them and arrested one who they determined was in the country illegally, wrote Nicholas DeSimone a resident agent in charge of the HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) Integrated Operations Group Task Force, in a June 18 statement. DeSimone said he reviewed videos from social media and news media and discussed the situation with Border Patrol agents.
During the arrest, DeSimone said Martinez was driving nearby in a black sedan, when he got out of his car and confronted the agents. Other drivers also stopped, blocking some lanes as agents tried to leave with the person they arrested, DeSimone said. Drivers also honked their horns and told agents to leave, he said.
DeSimone said Martinez and others blocked the agents’ vehicle with their own, and Martinez allegedly stood in front of the Border Patrol vehicle and put a trash can in front of it at one point. Other Border Patrol agents arrived, and the vehicle exited a minute later, DeSimone said.
“Based on my review of the video footage and my conversations with USBP personnel,” DeSimone said, “it appears that multiple individuals, including Martinez, were displeased with USBP’s presence and activities at the shopping center in Pico Rivera and acted in concert to interfere with the USBP agents in the discharge of their duties, including by temporarily blocking the USBP agents’ free passage and ability to depart the scene.”
‘I wish it wasn’t like this’
When Martinez and other onlookers criticized the agents’ behavior at the shopping center, he said they cursed at the group to get back, cocked their guns and repeatedly knocked him to the ground, not allowing him to get back up.
At one point, the agents lifted Martinez by his neck and continued pushing him down, grabbing and dragging him until they threw him by his feet into a vehicle, he said.
Footage from the Aguas Tijuana’s Juice Bar shows Martinez pull up to agents and get out of a black car after an agent from a white pickup truck grabs a man who was running from Border Patrol. Martinez later puts a trash can in front of the pickup truck, the footage shows.
In a portion of the video that DeSimone didn’t mention in his statement, an agent knocks the trash can over and then shoves Martinez to the ground. More agents approach and push Martinez down again before other agents wrestle him to the ground and take him away, the security footage shows.
The altercation left Martinez with a contusion to his right leg, bruising on his shoulders and neck and a scratch across his chest, he said. Until his leg heals, Martinez has to wear a brace and can’t put weight on his knee or bend it. His mother, Myra Villarreal, said she received a letter from Walmart shortly after his arrest saying he was terminated because of the alleged violence on Martinez’s part.
Agents ignored Martinez’s questions of why he was arrested until they parked, when they told him he had assaulted a federal agent and would face at least a decade in prison, he said. Martinez apologized to the agent as officials showed him a red mark on the agent’s eye and claimed Martinez broke his glasses, but Martinez said he didn’t hit any of the agents.
Agents later handcuffed Martinez and put him in a van with the detained worker, who was apologetic that Martinez was arrested for standing up for him. Martinez said he reassured the man and told him neither of them did anything wrong.
“We were just there because times are rough right now,” he said. “I wish it wasn’t like this, but it’s how they’re treating us.”
‘My son was just practicing his freedom of speech’
Officials first took Martinez to the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, where he said detainees were shackled, cuffed and treated “like caged animals.”
He asked repeatedly to talk with his family so they could bring his birth certificate and prove his citizenship, but officials refused, Martinez said.
Villarrea left work after learning of her son’s arrest through videos sent from one of Martinez’s coworkers to his sister.
Villareal went to the shopping center to try to speak to potential witnesses before heading downtown to search for her son. Authorities, she said, gave her little information and sent her from building to building. At one point, she said they denied Martinez was in the building where he was being held at the time, but eventually she gave his birth certificate to authorities and Martinez was moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Martinez’s mother only confirmed where her son was being held around 1 a.m. the next day, but she couldn’t speak to or visit him.
Villareal wasn’t surprised to learn her son had stood up for someone being detained. Martinez, his mother said, is kind and stands up for others before thinking of himself. She was upset to learn that federal officials posted her son’s photo online along with allegations that he assaulted federal agents.
“He did not punch nobody. He did not put hands on nobody,” Villareal said. “They put hands on him first. They initiated the violence. My son was just practicing his freedom of speech, which I believe everyone has.”