ICE changes story on Christmas Eve shooting by agents in Glen Burnie
Federal officials changed their account of the Christmas Eve shooting by ICE agents in Glen Burnie.
www.thebanner.com
“Federal officials on Friday changed their account of the
Christmas Eve shooting by immigration agents in Glen Burnie, reversing course after repeatedly doubling down on their story. It came a day after
Anne Arundel County Police publicly disputed it.
Until Friday evening, ICE had maintained that, on the morning of Dec. 24, agents approached a
work van occupied by two people in the country illegally. T
hey said the driver, Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins of Portugal, rammed ICE vehicles and tried to run officers over on a residential court, forcing them to open fire. Three agents shot at Sousa-Martins, striking him.
That much remains true, according to the agency.
But Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, walked back
the agency’s claims that a Salvadoran man, Salomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, was in the passenger’s seat of Sousa-Martin’s van and suffered whiplash when it crashed into a tree after the shooting.
McLaughlin said Friday that Serrano-Esquivel was in ICE custody and was injured when Sousa-Martins rammed the ICE vehicle he was in.
Photos that
ICE posted online the day of the shooting appeared to show a bullet hole in the passenger side of the van’s windshield. And a bystander’s video of the aftermath reviewed by The Banner showed several agents running to the driver’s side door of the van and pulling out a man, who was taken away on a stretcher. There was no indication of a passenger in the video.
On the day of the shooting, a county police spokesperson said the second person injured in the shooting was outside the van. The Banner later reported that an attorney for Serrano-Esquivel said he was arrested by ICE hours before the shooting in Southern Maryland and was injured when the ICE vehicle carrying him crashed because he was unable to brace himself with his hands cuffed.
Anne Arundel Police confirmed The Banner’s reporting about Serrano-Esquivel in a statement Thursday.
Neither ICE nor Homeland Security responded to questions about Serrano-Esquivel’s arrest or about their protocols for transporting people they have arrested.…”