Federal agents detained a U.S. citizen who was working at a residential construction site in Baldwin Park for nearly a half-hour before releasing him in a separate location. The incident occurred at approximately 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Bryan [last name withheld] noticed two vehicles with a different type of license plate drive down the residential street of the corner house he, his father, and another man were working at. The vehicles circled back and stopped in the road as multiple men in tactical gear jumped out of each vehicle.
Bryan yelled at his dad and co-worker to get behind the fence on the property while he stood outside and said “this is private property” to the agents as they approached the residence.
“They told me I’m not allowed to be here and that I’m being detained,” Bryan explains. “They took my phone right away and started handcuffing me. I’m like, ‘Am I being arrested?’ and they’re like, ‘No, you’re being detained for your own safety.’"
One of the agents began interrogating him, asking him numerous questions, but he refused to answer without knowing why he was being detained.
"I saw that they were wearing tactical gear, masked up,” Bryan says of the agents. "The only one that I saw well, the one that approached me and started asking questions, had a Border Patrol patch."
The agent refused to explain to Bryan why he was being detained and, instead, sat him in one of the vehicles and both vehicles left the area. He then argued with the agents for a moment and convinced them to stop and strap on his seat-belt for his safety.
The agents, according to Bryan, searched his pockets, removed his wallet, his ID, his hat and mask, and appeared to take either a photo or video of him with a phone.
“They kept questioning me and I was questioning them too, why I was being detained and if I'm arrested and they couldn't give me a straight answer,” he says.
Bryan estimates that he was in the vehicle for 10 to 20 minutes until both vehicles pulled over to release him in an area away from the work site. One of the agents tossed all his belongings on the ground.
"They told me that they dropped me back off, but no, they just dropped me off somewhere random,” he explains.
Luckily for Bryan, a bystander saw the entire series of events occur beginning with Bryan’s arrest at his work site. The bystander followed the two vehicles in his truck because, according to Bryan, he said it all looked suspicious to him. The bystander offered Bryan a ride back to his work site after the agents released him.
Bryan is unsure how the agents found the work site he was working at in the first place or why it was targeted, but he did note something suspicious in hindsight after he returned to the residence in Baldwin Park.
Earlier that morning, a man in a purple shirt asked to use the restroom, which he thought of as nothing out of the ordinary, as strangers sometimes ask to use a restroom at a construction site when a public one isn’t available.
“The weird thing that we saw is that he was recording,” explains Bryan. "He was recording . . . our job site, you know, people that were there, and then just started recording the whole neighborhood, the houses and everything, as he was walking away. After that happened, not gonna lie, probably, like 10, 15 minutes is probably when [the agents] showed up."
CBP has not responded to our request for comment on the incident.
