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(Trends Wide) — Police in El Paso, Texas, announced Wednesday that they have arrested a 27-year-old man who allegedly harassed immigrants and pointed a gun at them on New Year’s Eve, but the man has not yet been formally charged nor have police revealed his name.
Witnesses in El Paso also told Trends Wide they saw the gunman in two places where immigrants had been gathering in the streets.
In a statement, police confirmed that they conducted a traffic stop in the early morning of January 1 and asked the suspect to get out of his truck. The suspect jumped back into the vehicle and fled, police said.
“Due to a mechanical problem, the police unit became inactive and lost sight of the suspect,” police said in the statement, adding that they located the vehicle and identified the driver the next day. The investigation is ongoing, police said.
For weeks, city officials have raised concerns about the safety of vulnerable immigrants who have been living on the streets of El Paso, especially those who live outside of Sacred Heart Church, a popular shelter and gathering place for immigrants.
Mario D’Agostino, El Paso’s deputy city manager, would not confirm the alleged incident Wednesday, but said these are the types of incidents he is concerned about.
“That’s exactly why we’re asking for state resources in the form of assistance (from the Texas Department of Public Safety) with patrols,” D’Agostino said. “As we have said from the beginning, this is about the health and safety of migrants and the community.”
‘I was traumatized’
Brayan, a 19-year-old Venezuelan migrant, was outside Sagrado Corazón on the night of December 31 when a van pulled up. Brayan said he thought it was another vehicle dropping off clothing, food and other supplies, like so many other vehicles that stop at this location.
Brayan asked Trends Wide not to use his last name for security reasons. He crossed into the United States illegally on December 28 and did not turn himself in to US Border Patrol as an asylum seeker, he said.
As soon as he approached the truck, Brayan said, the man started yelling at him aggressively. Brayan said that he did not understand anything the man said in English and only caught the word “f*cking”.
“He called me and I thought he was going to help us. When I got closer, he put a gun to my face,” she told Trends Wide in a phone interview. “I kept telling him I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
That’s when Sandragrace Martinez, a mental health clinic and activist who volunteers to distribute donations to migrants, stepped in, she told Trends Wide.
In a phone interview, Martinez said he pulled Brayan out of the way and asked the man in the truck if he was okay. She said the situation calmed down and the man, whom she described as Caucasian, put his gun on the passenger seat.
“He looked at my crucifix, and he looked at me and said, ‘I don’t have a problem with you.’ He said, ‘I’m the eyes of the United States and I’m here to see,’” Martinez said, recalling his interaction with the man.
She urged him to leave and began taking a video of the man’s license plate before he drove off, she said. The plates were from New Mexico, she said, adding that she called 911 twice during the incident. Police have not confirmed the description of the vehicle while they are still interviewing witnesses.
The interaction with the man in the van lasted about 30 to 40 seconds, Brayan said.
“I was afraid because I was surprised. The rest of the night I couldn’t sleep because I was so nervous that he would come back and shoot me,” he said. “I was traumatized.”
a second meeting
A couple of hours later, just after midnight on New Year’s Day, Martinez said he was at the Greyhound bus station, another popular gathering place for immigrants, to warn them about the man in the van, when he saw the vehicle. stop again.
She said the man got out of his vehicle this time, walked up to the migrants near a warming station, pointed his gun at them and yelled at them.
Martinez said she began honking repeatedly to scare him, and another city employee flashed his vehicle’s headlights in the man’s direction. She couldn’t hear everything the man yelled because of the horn, she said, but she heard him say, “This is my country.” Martinez said she called 911 again.
The man soon returned to his truck, she said, and began to drive away.
Martinez said he saw an El Paso police car parked near the bus station, out of sight of the incident, and alerted them to the situation and flagged down the vehicle, which is when the police pursuit began.
Trends Wide has asked authorities for the police report, dash cam footage and 911 calls. Trends Wide has also contacted the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The Sacred Heart Church priest said he has not heard anything about the alleged incident outside his church, nor has he been asked about the incident by the police. Between 300 and 400 migrants were sleeping outside his church on Wednesday night, he said.
Last week, Trends Wide crews in El Paso began seeing Texas DPS officers patrolling the area around Sacred Heart, along with El Paso police officers.
The Anti-Defamation League and the ACLU of Texas do not have readily available statistics on hate incidents against immigrants, but in a 2022 complaint filed by the ACLU with the US Department of Justice, the ACLU expressed concern about the increase of hate against immigrants in Texas.
