Ontario congresswoman demanding answers after resident shot by ICE agents during operation
The day after a U.S. citizen was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Ontario when the man allegedly tried to ram officers with his car, community members are demanding answers as to what really happened.
"How these agents are acting is blatant, irresponsible, and total disregard for the humanity of American citizens," said Congresswoman Norma Torres during an interview Friday with Eyewitness News.
"Every incident we have looked at, ICE's knee-jerk response is to put themselves as victims when we know they are the aggressors.
"They are heavily armed, masked individuals, storming neighborhoods and taking people down simply because of the color of their skin, or how they look. This behavior must stop."
The shooting happened at around 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning in the 2800 block of South Vineyard Avenue in Ontario.
According to ICE, the man who was shot, identified as 24-year-old Carlos Jimenez, wasn't their original target. They said they tried to conduct a traffic stop of the driver of a gray sedan when the driver of a Lexus SUV tried to intervene.
ICE said Jimenez drove up, turned around, threw his car in reverse and tried to run them over. That's when an ICE agent opened fire, shooting out of the passenger window.
Video from AIR7 showed a sedan boxed in by an unmarked SUV and a pickup truck on South Vineyard Avenue. The street was shut down at the scene as the investigation continued, reopening around 3 p.m.
Ontario police said they responded to a "request for emergency assistance" after Department of Homeland Security officers were involved in a shooting, authorities said.
The request was made at 6:33 a.m. in the 2800 block of South Vineyard Avenue, the Ontario Police Department said in a statement, adding that its officers were not involved in the initial incident. The location is in a residential neighborhood, west of the Whispering Lakes Golf Course.
"Several Ontario police officers responded to the scene to provide traffic control and scene security while DHS conducted their investigation," the police department said in a statement. Homeland Security and the FBI were investigating the shooting.
Jimenez brother said his brother was on his way to work at a nearby food bank when he was shot. They live in a nearby mobile park, and his brother ran in screaming that he'd been shot in the shoulder.
Police tape surrounded one of the residences on the property of the mobile home park and the Lexus SUV with a shattered window was parked near the home.
Family drove the man to the hospital. After being transferred to Riverside Community Hospital, he was released later in the afternoon. According to ICE, he was booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, facing charges for assaulting, resisting or impeding.
In a statement, ICE said in part "This is another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day-in and day-out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals. ICE officers now face a 1,000% increase in assaults them including cars being used as weapons and death threats against our agents are up 8,000%.
"This violence must end. Let me be clear: Anyone who assaults, impedes, obstructs, or threatens the lives of federal officers will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Immigrants' rights groups were furious over what happened.
"You have federal agents coming in with masked faces, and not having to identify themselves, not having to provide a warrant," said Javier Hernandez, the executive director for the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice.
"The systems that are supposed to protect us are no longer there," said Hernandez. "When the Supreme Court says you can racially profile people, now you have U.S. citizens who are being racially profiled, you have here possibly a U.S. citizen that was shot today."
Jimenez is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Monday.
