ICE Shot a Man in December. Now, Agents Can’t Get Their Stories Straight.
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These are the facts most everyone agrees on:
Juan Carlos Rodriguez Romero pulled out of his apartment complex to start a DoorDash shift on the icy roads of St. Paul four days before Christmas, during the early stages of Operation Metro Surge.
The driver behind him flicked on the emergency lights.
The immigration agents — two in a blue Ford Expedition and four in a white Dodge Durango — had run Rodriguez Romero’s license plate, and upon learning he was a Cuban national with a pending asylum case, decided to arrest him. Rodriguez Romero pulled over, and the agents surrounded his white Toyota 4Runner, ordering him to get out of the vehicle. He refused, and after the agents threatened to break his driver’s side window, he drove away.
The agents hopped back in their cars and pursued Rodriguez Romero as he circled back towards his apartment. As he pulled into the parking lot, he hit two parked cars and came to a stop. The agents again surrounded him — this time with guns drawn — and as Rodriguez Romero started up again toward the apartment’s main entrance, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fired two shots at his car.
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Again, Rodriguez Romero stopped the car.
Here, the government and defendants’ stories diverge: either the immigration agents in the Durango rammed into Rodriguez Romero’s car from behind, pushing it into the feds’ Expedition; or, as the government claims, Rodriguez Romero reversed into the Durango before shifting into drive and ramming into the back of the Explorer, pinning an agent between the vehicles.
Rodriguez Romero then ran into his apartment building, where the officers caught up with him, handcuffed him and drove him to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling.
Rodriguez Romero is now facing three federal felony charges: two counts of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon — his car — and one count of assault on a federal officer, for allegedly biting the hand of an ICE officer while being arrested inside the apartment building.
No video has emerged of the events leading up to Rodriguez Romero’s arrest on Dec. 21. The evidence provided by the government so far largely consists of........
