Video Shows Immigration Officers Shooting at a San Bernardino Family's Car. DHS Calls It Justified.

A recent immigration stop in San Bernardino, California, ended with three gunshots from federal officers after the driver fled the scene in his vehicle. While the Department of Homeland Security claims that the officers acted in self-defense after the driver struck two agents, the passengers believe footage of the altercation reveals that it was the passengers, not the officers, who were the victims. 

On Saturday morning, Francisco, an undocumented immigrant who has been in the U.S. for 23 years, and his 18-year-old son and 23-year-old son-in-law—who are both U.S. citizens—were returning home when unmarked vehicles surrounded their truck. The recordings of the incident begin with four officers—armed, masked, and dressed in street clothes with black vests with the word “police”—surrounding the car. One officer had a black baseball cap with “CBP” across the front, presumably for “Customs and Border Protection.” The passengers can be heard asking the officers, “What do you want?” and asking why the officers pulled them over, as an agent yells, “Francisco! Roll down the window!” 

Francisco tells his son, in Spanish, “Don’t open [the door],” and shakes his head, signaling “no” to the agents. In response, two officers shatter both of the truck’s front windows—a tactic that has become increasingly common among federal immigration officials since President Donald Trump took office. One agent immediately reaches through the broken driver’s side window and attempts to grab Francisco before the vehicle takes off. As Francisco drives away, three gunshots ring out. The last video clip shows the truck’s smashed glass windows and at least two bullet holes on the back passenger side door. No one was wounded by the gunfire. 

After the incident, Francisco called and “reported that masked men had pulled him over, broke his car window and shot at him,” according to a statement by the San Bernardino Police Department to ABC News. Police officers spoke with Francisco at his home but released him from custody due to a California law prohibiting them from assisting in federal immigration enforcement. 

Federal officers also arrived at the family’s home and remained there for five or six hours but were not allowed to enter without a warrant. Among the agents was the officer the family believes shot at the truck. But when he was confronted about the gunfire, he said, “I didn’t shoot. I tapped your window three times,” according to the family.   

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called the CBP officers’ actions self-defense and criticized the local police for not taking Francisco into custody after he “struck two CBP officers with his vehicle,” injuring two officers, according to CNN. “This decision was made despite the subject refusing to comply and wounding two officers—another terrible example of California’s pro-sanctuary policies in action that shield criminals instead of protecting communities,” DHS told CNN in a statement. The department has not released details of how or where the officers were struck.

Art Acevedo, a former police chief in Houston and Miami, told the Los Angeles Times that “many law enforcement agencies revised departmental policies and generally prohibited shooting at moving vehicles and officers from standing in the path of a vehicle.” However, a moving vehicle can be considered a safety-threatening weapon. Under the DHS use-of-force policies, deadly force is prohibited from being used against fleeing subjects but is permitted if the officer has a “reasonable belief that the subject poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm” and “such force is necessary to prevent escape.” Officers are also generally prohibited from discharging firearms to disable vehicles or firing warning shots at a moving vehicle to initiate compliance.  

“The family wants an investigation, they want to clear their name, that they didn’t run anyone over,” Javier Hernandez, executive director of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, told the L.A. Times on behalf of Francisco and his family. According to Hernandez, Francisco is unsure why immigration officers—who DHS said were conducting a targeted enforcement operation, which is why agents knew his name—stopped him, as he has no criminal record. However, Hernandez said that deportation proceedings against Francisco may have been triggered after he began seeking legal immigration status, but gave up because the process required him to leave the country for a period of time. 

Since January, the Trump administration has deployed many controversial tactics—including masked, roving patrols of immigration officers using and detaining a record number of immigration detainees amid overcrowding concerns—to meet its goal of 1 million deportations per year. While use of firearms by CBP officers against subjects is a relatively rare occurrence—with only 20 and 18 incidents reported in FY 2022 and FY 2023, respectively—it’s possible that the San Bernardino incident could mark the beginning of a new escalation of force used by the Trump administration to meet its mass deportation goals.

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