The Home Depot in Cypress Park was raided by U.S. Border Patrol agents this morning at around 9:12 a.m, according to eyewitnesses who spoke with L.A. TACO. Six people and one toddler were detained in the parking lot, according to rapid responders. The raid lasted around 30 minutes.
A U.S. Citizen was also temporarily detained by Border Patrol agents, before being released and taken to the hospital to receive medical attention for injuries sustained during his detention.
In addition, the young detained child was hit in the face by a ball that one of the agents threw into the back of a vehicle.
At 4:40 p.m., rapid responders confirmed that the toddler was safe and reunited with its mother.
Between roughly 20 to 50 U.S. Border Patrol Agents were involved in the raid in the Home Depot parking lot. There were at least 10 unmarked vehicles, as well, according to a rapid responder named Cloodcat, who is also a member of L.A. Tenants Union and NELA Community Defense Hub.
At least one agent was also spotted inside the Home Depot, according to a social media post by Highland Park 90042.
In video footage reviewed by L.A. TACO, a toddler was sitting in a front facing carseat placed on the car’s center backseat. The vehicle's front doors were ajar, as masked agents donning tactical vests–some with helmets on–surrounded the vehicle. The person who appears to be the child's father, Dennis Quinonez, was handcuffed by agents.
“I’m gonna arrest you for impeding,” an agent is heard saying to a bystander.
In footage L.A. TACO reviewed, a border patrol agent gets into the driver's seat. Another agent, on the passenger side of the vehicle, grabs what appears to be a soccer ball or a volleyball from the bottom of the passenger seat floor.
That agent then threw the ball into the vehicle, to the right of the toddler. It rebounded off the seat and hit the toddler on the head, and then seems to rest on the child’s face. After a few seconds, the agent in the driver's seat moves the ball away from the toddler's face.
A U.S. citizen named Jorge, who is a staff member of the day laborer center, which has been located on the Home Depot parking lot for 20 years, was among those detained by Border Patrol agents as they “breached” the private property of the Cypress Community Job Center, according to Megan Ortiz, executive director of the Institute of Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California.
Agents actually took the chain off the gate to the center and threw it to the side so they could enter. They threw the coordinator on the ground and put their knees on his shoulders, detaining him then driving away with him inside of the vehicle, Ortiz also says.
Jorge told them that he works at the job center and asked them why they took him. The agents told him they were going to go back to the center and claimed they took him because he looked suspicious.
Jorge sustained a fractured wrist due to the brutal detainment.
“They photographed him, videotaped him, were asking him questions, interrogating him about what the organization does, and they said, if he did not give them information, that they were going to process him and put him through the immigration detention system,” Ortiz tells L.A. TACO. “The only information he did give was his name, and he was subsequently released, and now he's actually in the emergency room getting his injuries checked out.”
We reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol for comment on these incidents and they referred us to the Department of Homeland Security.
“During the operation, a U.S. citizen exited his vehicle wielding a hammer and threw rocks at law enforcement while he had a child in his car. He was arrested for assault and during his arrest a pistol was found in his car, that is reported stolen out of the state of New York. The individual has an active warrant for property damage,” a DHS Spokesperson said in a statement to L.A. TACO.
L.A. Times reported the man is 32-years-old and they spoke with a immigration lawyer who spoke with the family.
The Home Depot was the site of a “targeted immigration enforcement operation” conducted by U.S. Border Patrol and they detained five other individuals, who they allege have criminal histories.
According to our reporting a total of eight people were initially detained during the operation including one U.S. Citizen who is still in custody, one U.S. Citizen who was released and sustained injuries, and a toddler.
L.A. TACO sent DHS specific questions regarding the toddler’s and worker center staffer’s treatment by federal immigration agents as the operation unfolded, but they did not respond directly to questions.
The toddler, who was in a carseat when he was detained by federal agents, was driven off in his vehicle by federal immigration agents. When she was picked up from federal agents by her mother, she had a bruise on her cheek and a painful rash from a dirty diaper, according to a statement released by Immigrant Defenders Law Firm on Instagram, today.
In video footage we reviewed, a man named Cesar, wearing a yellow hoodie, is pinned to the ground by four agents.
“Give me your hands,” said one of the agents.
He lay on his stomach, with one of the agents bending his leg back and holding it down. One of the agents then pepper-sprayed him, only a few inches away from his face, before he was handcuffed.
In additional video footage of the raid on Figueroa Street filmed by Cloodcat, agents put a man named Luis in an unmarked vehicle near a group of fruit vendors with rainbow umbrellas. Agents also took another man, named Francisco, in a different area of the parking lot.
Dozens of federal Immigration agents were seen staging in the parking lot of Dodgers Stadium this week, as well, one day after championship celebrations were held to celebrate the team’s World Series victory.
Quinonez, the U.S. Citizen who was separated from his 1-year-old daughter during a raid at the Cypress Park Home Depot, was released on bond yesterday. He is now reunited with his family.
“She was exhausted and cried. Now she’s so happy to be back with her ‘dada.’ I can’t imagine what she felt, unable to speak yet, she was probably so confused,” Dennis Quinonez's mother, Maria, said in statement released via Immigration Defenders Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
Quinonez’s family was in the courtroom yesterday. During the hearing, the judge said his family’s presence moved him and, for that reason, would allow him to post bail.
Additional reporting by Memo Torres.
This story was updated on November 5th to include the statement L.A. TACO received from the Department of Homeland Security after reaching out.
This story was further updated on November 7th to include newly discovered information regarding the detained toddler's kidnapped father.
