The Delano Police Department has forwarded a report to the Kern County District Attorney’s Office requesting criminal charges against two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who police say lied about a chase that eventually led two undocumented immigrants to crash their vehicle. Santo Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, farm workers and parents of six children, were killed at the scene. Delano, California, police say that following the deadly crash, ICE agents gave them information that did not match up with surveillance footage:
Shortly after the March 13 crash, a deportation officer told police officers that his car followed in the same direction of a vehicle he was attempting to stop, but that he was not in "pursuit with emergency lights/sirens," according to a statement provided in a Delano Police Department traffic collision report.
But surveillance footage obtained by the Police Department showed that one of two cars driven by the deportation officers had its front and rear emergency lights activated and the second had its rear emergency lights activated. A time stamp showed the couple's car at 06:48:42 traveling at a faster rate of speed than other traffic. At 06:48:52, two cars that matched the deportation officers' vehicles followed with the lights activated, according to the report.
"Based on the discrepancies in the statements provided by the ICE agents, the report was forwarded to the Kern County District Attorney's Office for review, where charges have been requested for violation of 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 review by the Kern County District Attorney's Office is still pending."
While there needs to a full investigation and accountability, none of it can change what happened here. Two parents—who ICE mistakenly targeted in the first place—were so terrified of ICE that they ended up dead, and six kids were left orphaned. Santo Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto mattered, and they and their children deserve answers. "We want to ensure that the deaths of Marcelina and Santos are not in vain,” said Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers (UFW). “This tragedy has shown this country that the inhumane politics of this administration destroy families."