Editor’s note: This story was updated with statements from an statement from an ICE spokesperson.
The mayor of Long Beach says Immigration and Customs Enforcement must answer pressing questions about why its agents seriously injured a U.S. citizen and then denied him medical attention until local police arrived.
Ricardo Gonzalez was riding an e-bike in his North Long Beach neighborhood on Saturday when the federal agents blocked him in with their car and knocked him to the ground, according to video from the scene. An ICE spokesperson said Tuesday that agents arrested Gonzalez after he “smashed the mirror of a government vehicle.”
Neighbors told the Long Beach Post that agents pinned him to the ground and tased him twice while he yelled that his arm was broken. The ICE spokesperson said the agents “followed their training and used the minimum amount of force.”
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson is demanding those agents be pulled off the streets immediately. He wants the Department of Homeland Security — which encompasses ICE — to explain why agents stopped Gonzalez, whether he was racially profiled and why he wasn’t immediately given any medical aid.
“ICE should not be operating in our communities, and it should be abolished,” Richardson said in an interview Monday.
Richardson said he sent a written complaint Monday to the DHS Office of Inspector General and Long Beach’s congressional representatives.
“We want a public report out,” Richardson said. “We want acknowledgement of this complaint. We don’t want this to just be received and filed. … We want to make sure they preserve evidence. All of those things, because our community shouldn’t allow a paramilitary force to simply roam our streets and harass and commit violence without any accountability in the United States of America.”
Since the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement, Long Beach has pushed back by joining a lawsuit accusing agents of racially profiling, and, earlier, it broadened its sanctuary city law to ban city contractors — not just employees — from participating in most immigration enforcement.
Rep. Robert Garcia, who represents Long Beach in Congress, said ICE needs to be reined in and, ultimately, dismantled.
“ICE and DHS are completely out of control,” he said at a news conference Monday. He pledged to lead oversight efforts if Democrats win back the House in November.
Neighbors who witnessed Gonzalez’s detention said ICE agents in unmarked cars had been hanging around their neighborhood in North Long Beach for hours on Saturday morning. The ICE spokesperson said they were there to arrest someone when people started to “impede operations, threaten officers, and damage government vehicles.”
Multiple neighbors, including Gonzalez, called police about the unmarked vehicles, according to Richardson. One neighbor told the Post that she wanted police to come move the cars that were blocking streets. Richardson said Gonzalez seemed worried about the tense situation and hoped police could de-escalate it.
Soon, Gonzalez was on he ground. A neighbor, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Joe, said agents knocked Gonzalez off his bike and accused him of throwing something at their car.
A crowd of about 50 people formed around them. Neighbors demanded agents let Gonzalez go and began blocking their cars. The standoff, neighbors said, lasted about an hour.
At some point, agents also called 911 “due to vehicle vandalism taking place and a subject in need of medical aid,” police said in a statement.
When police arrived, “they saw chaos taking place,” according to Richardson. Video shows ICE agents letting officers take Gonzalez after looking at his wallet and finding identification. Richardson said police drove Gonzalez to a local fire station where paramedics then took him to the hospital.
Gonzalez is still recovering, according to an online fundraiser.
Richardson said Gonzalez is a father who works with his hands to support his family. The mayor called him recently to see how he was doing and offer help. He said Gonzalez’s biggest request was for privacy.
“What he really shared with me is that he doesn’t really want the attention, and that he’s mostly concerned about his children seeing him detained,” Richardson said.
Reporter Jacob Sisneros contributed to this article.