Last August, federal immigration agents in unmarked cars pulled over Francisco Longoria as he drove through a majority Hispanic neighborhood in San Bernardino, California, with his teenage son in the passenger seat.
Cellphone and surveillance videos show masked agents surrounding the pickup truck, at least one with a gun drawn. When Longoria refused to roll down his window, one agent smashed the driver-side glass and reached inside. That’s when Longoria hit the gas and fled, and an agent fired multiple shots at the passenger side of his truck. Longoria and his son were not injured.
That same day, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement asserting that Longoria “drove his truck at the officers and struck two CBP [Customs and Border Protection] officers with his vehicle,” and that an officer fired his gun “in self-defense.” But video recordings from inside the truck and a nearby business appear to show no agents or vehicles in Longoria’s path as he drove away.
Longoria was charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon. Weeks later, during a court hearing, prosecutors acknowledged they couldn’t identify a lawful basis for the stop and had no evidence that any officers were injured. The Department of Justice dropped the case less than a month after filing it.
Like the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the Longoria case is part of a pattern of behavior exhibited by federal immigration agents since the Trump administration escalated its immigration enforcement campaign last summer. According to an MS NOW review of court records and media reports, federal agents – some working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, others for the Border Patrol, a part of CBP – have shot at people in their cars at least 15 times since July.
These agents have escalated what’s always been a problem with policing in America… I think we’re going to see a lot more people get killed.”
E. Paige White, defense attorney
These incidents cast new light on the Trump administration’s aggressive and, in the view of critics, reckless federal crackdown on American cities. The shootings occurred most often in places Trump has targeted with federal deployments — mostly Democratic-led jurisdictions with sanctuary policies, including California, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
The agents work in different subdivisions and units under the DHS banner, each agent with a unique combination of training and field experience. All of them were reassigned by the Trump administration to “roving patrols” tasked with arresting as many undocumented immigrants as possible. Jonathan Ross, the agent who killed Good in Minneapolis, had military training and almost 20 years’ experience with both Border Patrol and ICE. But in nearly every other case, the agents remain publicly unidentified, so the nature of their training and experience is unknown.
After each shooting, federal officials and agencies worked promptly to justify their officers’ actions using the same assertion: The drivers attempted to run over or ram agents with their vehicles. In many cases, the government offered this rationale in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, well before officials could produce evidence or file charges, let alone complete an investigation. But the claim frequently falls apart under public scrutiny, when video or other evidence comes to light.
Of the 15 incidents reviewed by MS NOW, eight resulted in criminal cases, four of which were dropped or dismissed by judges, and four of which are ongoing. In three other cases, civilians were placed in deportation proceedings and remain in ICE custody, but have not been criminally charged, despite DHS’s public claims that they committed serious offenses. In two of the incidents, criminal charges were never filed because the civilians were fatally shot. The status of the remaining cases is unclear.
None of the federal agents who fired their weapons at civilians has been charged with a crime. Defense attorneys working on the cases told MS NOW that they haven’t been informed of any agents being placed on administrative leave or subjected to internal discipline.
Former DHS officials and law enforcement experts suggest these shootings are the product of dramatically escalated enforcement tactics deployed during Trump’s second term. But it’s hard to say with certainty whether federal agents are shooting at drivers more frequently today than in previous years. Although DHS publishes partial data for use-of-force incidents, the nature of the data and the Trump administration’s changes to standard operating procedure make historical comparisons difficult. But former officials told MS NOW that this kind of event — agents firing guns at vehicles in urban areas, far away from their standard posts on the border — used to be exceedingly rare.
Police experts who reviewed the cases told MS NOW that almost every officer who fired their weapon acted outside deadly-force guidelines accepted by most of the U.S. law enforcement community.
“The tactics you’re seeing used by ICE and CBP are absolutely not in line with best practices in American policing,” said Art Acevedo, the former police chief in Houston, Miami and other cities. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
Before Trump’s second term, ICE and Border Patrol agents very rarely engaged in the kinds of operations that are now a common sight in American cities: large-scale, indiscriminate sweeps in urban environments, often in the presence of community members.
For its part, DHS disputes these assertions.
“The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using deadly force,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told MS NOW. “It’s a pattern of vehicles being used as weapons by violent agitators to attack our law enforcement. … Our officers are experiencing a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks. When faced with dangerous circumstances, DHS law enforcement used their training to protect themselves, their fellow officers, and the public.”
McLaughlin did not provide evidence to support the claim of a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks.
“Officer-created jeopardy“
Daniel J. Oates worked for the New York Police Department for 21 years before becoming police chief, a title he held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Aurora, Colorado, and Miami Beach, Florida. At each of the departments he led, Oates — following the model set by New York in 1972 — imposed rules strictly forbidding officers from firing at moving cars, including in cases when drivers try to ram officers.
“The cops were somewhat resistant, but eventually they accepted the rule and the reasons behind it,” Oates said.
His rationale is simple: The ban makes interactions between officers and civilians safer. One of many concerns is that firing a gun and incapacitating the driver of a moving car puts bystanders in danger. Instead, Oates focuses on training officers to avoid what law enforcement professionals call “officer-created jeopardy” — in other words, police actions that lead people to behave in ways that might justify deadly force.
Oates and other law enforcement experts interviewed by MS NOW suggested that Good’s shooting was a case of officer-created jeopardy. Oates stressed that only a full and impartial investigation could resolve the case. But based on publicly available video, Oates said, it appears that Ross put himself in danger by walking in front of a running vehicle with a driver at the wheel. For this reason, even if Ross genuinely believed Good was trying to run him over, the shooting would be unjustified, Oates said.
“Those of us who have had executive positions and have had to hold cops accountable would not accept that explanation,” Oates said. “If you place yourself in front of the vehicle and then you shoot someone because you’re in front of the vehicle, that’s not acceptable in American policing.”
Strict rules against firing at moving vehicles are now common across local and state law enforcement in the U.S., and are recommended by the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises police on use-of-force standards. ICE and CBP have their own use-of-force standards predating the Trump administration that, while less explicit, embrace similar principles, including keeping officers out of unnecessary danger.
“ICE law enforcement officers are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers,” McLaughlin said in her statement. She stressed that many federal immigration agents also have experience with other law enforcement agencies and the U.S. armed forces.
“To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations.”
STEPHEn miller, White House deputy chief of staff
“Officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training,” she said.
Yet federal agents are firing into vehicles at a rate that’s raising concern among experts, who are starting to wonder whether the training McLaughlin touts is effective — or even still in use.
“I would hope that every police officer, anyone who’s allowed to carry a firearm, would be trained not to shoot at a moving vehicle,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who specializes in high-risk police activities.
A change in tactics
Before June of last year, ICE and Border Patrol agents very rarely engaged in the kind of operations that are now common in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and other American cities: large-scale, indiscriminate sweeps in urban environments, often in the presence of community members observing or actively antagonizing them.
Federal agents’ work used to look much different, especially before Trump’s second term. Officers with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, typically picked up detainee transfers at local county jails. Border Patrol agents were accustomed to pursuing and detaining people in rural border areas where the agency manages multiple layers of surveillance and exerts near total territorial control.
Tactics changed dramatically last year, when the administration began an aggressive recruiting campaign and directed ICE and Border Patrol to roam metro areas — starting with Los Angeles in June — to detain as many people as possible rather than going after preselected targets.
As a result, streets across the country are flooded with agents who do not necessarily have appropriate training for the operations they’re conducting, according to a former high-level official who was with DHS during the Biden administration. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they are still employed by the government.
While some units are trained for high-impact urban operations — including ERO’s Fugitive Operations Division and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (or BORTAC) — even that training, the former official said, is inappropriate for the operations of today, which often involve all kinds of civilians in situations that require tact and care.
“They’re trained to start off at 10 out of 10 as far as aggression and perception of risk,” said the former official.
The shift in tactics has created dangerous conditions for civilians and officers alike, said one former CBP oversight official with experience in internal use-of-force investigations. The official, who worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations, asked not to be named for fear of politicizing the work of their former unit.
“Attempting to conduct enforcement operations in chaotic urban environments where you’re having all kinds of unknown variables injected in the middle of your operation is extremely fraught,” said the former CBP official. “It’s risky for the public and it’s risky for the agents.”
I didn’t even see them. They didn’t pull me over, like with red and blue flashing lights. No, this was me at a stop sign, as if I was getting carjacked.”
Philip Brown, u.s. citizen shot at by agents
What remains unclear is whether DHS or any of the agencies under its umbrella are following up with officers after their operations go awry. When an agent fires their weapon, standard DHS protocol suggests placing the agent on administrative leave while ensuing investigations run their course. In her statement, McLaughlin said that “every use of force incident and any discharge of an ICE firearm must be properly reported and reviewed by the agency in accordance with agency policy, procedure, and guidelines.” She didn’t respond, however, when asked whether any agents involved in the shootings reviewed by MS NOW were placed on administrative leave.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have publicly urged ICE and Border Patrol agents to operate with little restraint. Five days after Good’s killing, DHS’ official X account reposted an October interview with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
“To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties,” Miller said. “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.” At least three of the cases examined by MS NOW involved evidentiary and due process failures after the shootings, according to court records and interviews with defense attorneys. Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot in Chicago in October, was the victim of one of these failures. DHS and federal prosecutors said she rammed her car into a government vehicle driven by the Border Patrol agent who shot her. The agent then drove the vehicle out of state and, with agency authorization, had it cleaned and repaired before Martinez’s defense team could inspect it. The agent also bragged about the hearing in text messages released as evidence in the criminal case, sending one text that read: “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your books boys.” Prosecutors later dropped the charges against Martinez. In the case of Carlitos Ricardo Parias — a Mexican national and TikToker known by the moniker Richard LA for filming federal agents in Los Angeles — a federal judge threw out the indictment three days before it was set to go to trial, citing violations of Parias’ constitutional rights. According to court documents, Border Patrol agents surrounded Parias’ car on Oct. 21 with a warrant for his arrest on immigration violations. Footage from a body camera worn by Border Patrol agent Jaime Avina shows that Parias, with his car boxed between two agents’ vehicles, accelerated in place, producing a thick plume of smoke. After the smoke cleared, Avina — who had his gun drawn — approached the smashed passenger-side window of Parias’ car and, while attempting to open the door from the inside, swapped the gun from his right hand to his left and fired it. The vehicle did not appear to be moving at the time. “Oh!” Avina can be heard exclaiming in the video after firing the weapon. “Fuck!” The bullet struck Parias in the elbow and ricocheted, striking an agent with the U.S. Marshals in the hand. Other agents yelled, “Who shot?” Avina backed away from the car and replied, “I shot.” In a statement, McLaughlin said that Parias had “weaponized his vehicle and began ramming the law enforcement vehicle in an attempt to flee. Fearing for the safety of the public and law enforcement, our officers followed their training and fired defensive shots.” Parias was charged in federal court with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, but authorities did not produce the body camera footage that cast doubt on the government’s version of events until six weeks after the incident — five days after the discovery deadline imposed by the court. A federal judge dismissed the charges, citing the government’s failure to turn over evidence, as well as violations of Parias’ right to counsel. Court documents show that ICE, which had Parias in its custody at the time, repeatedly obstructed his lawyers’ efforts to meet with their client by, among other things, allowing their calls and emails to the ICE detention center to go unanswered for long periods of time. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment in this case, and DHS did not respond specifically to questions about its handling of evidence and due process after the incidents in question. In August, federal immigration agents began appearing on patrols in Washington alongside officers from the Metropolitan Police Department, following a Trump administration order temporarily federalizing the city’s police force under a declared “crime emergency.” During the 30-day takeover, ICE and Border Patrol personnel accompanied MPD officers on routine patrols. Although formal federal control expired in September, ICE and CBP agents continued operating in the district in visible coordination with local police. On Oct. 17, on Benning Road NE, Philip Brown, a Black man and U.S. citizen originally from Brooklyn, New York, was in his Dodge Durango at a stop sign with another vehicle directly in front of him when armed men suddenly approached his car. “I didn’t even see them,” Brown told MS NOW. “They didn’t pull me over, like with red and blue flashing lights. No, this was me at a stop sign, as if I was getting carjacked.” An MPD officer present at the scene named Jason Sterling later testified in court that officers stopped Brown over his dark window tinting and a missing front license plate. As they approached, Sterling said he heard Brown’s car rev and then collide with the car in front of him, followed by the sound of gunshots. It was later determined in a preliminary court hearing that an agent with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations — the agency’s criminal investigations division — fired his gun at Brown’s vehicle at least four times. The bullets narrowly missed Brown. One went through the collar of his jacket. “I’m still in shock from it,” Brown said. Days later, DHS said in a statement that Brown had driven his car at officers “in a deliberate attempt to run them down.” Brown denies this, and Sterling testified in court that there were no officers positioned in front of Brown’s vehicle when he heard the gunshots. Brown was charged with felony fleeing — not with assault or attempted assault on an officer. During the first hearing in D.C. Superior Court, Sterling admitted that, under the advice of another MPD official, he intentionally omitted the shooting from his police report. The judge dismissed the charges during the hearing, citing a lack of probable cause for the arrest and Sterling’s glaring omission from the charging documents. Brown’s lawyer, E. Paige White, who used to work as a public defender in Washington, said the MPD officers’ actions were unusual and likely influenced by the presence of armed federal agents. “The feds being involved makes it totally different,” she told MS NOW. “The MPD is not moving the way the MPD normally moves.” White is still awaiting the results of an investigation MPD said it was conducting into the incident. Brown, meanwhile, has watched events unfold in Minneapolis and feels grateful to be alive. “Those three bullets that they let off at [Good] are the same three bullets that they let off at me,” Brown said. “I just so happen to be the survivor. I’m able to see my daughter turn 5 years old.” If federal agencies continue to subvert law enforcement norms while carrying out Trump’s escalating federal crackdown on American cities, White worries that Brown’s experience — and Good’s — will become more common. “These agents have escalated what’s always been a problem with policing in America to a level that none of us have seen before,” said White. “I think that we’re going to see a lot more people get killed.” This story is part of Cities Under Siege, an MS NOW effort to document how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics are affecting communities across America.
David Noriega is a MS NOW Reporter based in Los Angeles.
Kay Guerrero
Kay Guerrero is a senior producer of newsgathering for MS NOW. Recommended
“Who shot?”
“As if I was getting carjacked”
