Police investigate ICE reports about deadly crash in California
LOS ANGELES — The Delano Police Department has forwarded a report to the Kern County district attorney’s office asking prosecutors to review whether federal immigration agents gave false information to police investigating a traffic crash that killed a couple who were in the country illegally.
Santos Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto were killed while fleeing from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 13. The couple had initially stopped, but then fled before colliding with a utility pole at high speed.
According to a collision report, an ICE deportation officer told police that, after the initial stop, he was not in “pursuit with emergency lights/sirens.” But surveillance video showed the immigration officers’ cars traveling in the same direction as the couple’s vehicle with their emergency lights activated.
“Based on the discrepancy the report was forwarded to the Kern County District Attorney’s Office for review since they have jurisdiction,” Delano’s interim police chief, Raul Alvizo, said in a statement. “The charges requested are according to California Vehicle Code Section 31, ‘No person shall give, either orally or in writing, information to a peace officer while in the performance of his duties under the provision of this code when such person knows that the information is false.’”
The complaint, received Wednesday morning, is pending review, according to the district attorney’s office. ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ICE deportation officer Ramiro Sanchez told police that on the morning of the crash, he and colleagues were conducting surveillance on an apartment in order to detain Celestino Hilario Garcia, who was targeted for “removal” from the country.
Sanchez stated that a colleague witnessed Santos Hilario Garcia, whom they mistook for Celestino Hilario Garcia, enter a vehicle in front of the apartment, along with a woman and a girl.
Sanchez and another deportation officer, Dimas Benitez, followed the car in black, unmarked Jeeps as the couple dropped their daughter off at school. Shortly afterward, Sanchez activated his emergency lights to signal the car to pull over.
Santos Hilario Garcia complied, but as Sanchez got out of his car the couple’s vehicle sped away, the report said. Sanchez told police that his car followed, but that he was not in “pursuit with emergency lights/sirens.”
However, surveillance video from the period after the traffic stop and before the crash showed that the two cars driven by ICE agents had their emergency lights activated.