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Worcester releases video of ICE arresting mother, police arresting teen daughter
In the video, Worcester police officers push a teen girl to the ground to arrest her. The city is requesting charges against the girl be dropped.
The City of Worcester released police body camera footage showing federal immigration agents detaining a mother and Worcester police officers arresting her teen daughter.
“I recognize the significant impact this incident has had on our community,” City Manager Eric Batista said in a statement. “It has created division and caused trauma to the individuals directly involved and to the greater community at large.”
The city released footage from three police officers’ body cameras from the scene on Eureka Street on May 8 in a collection of YouTube videos, as well as five 911 calls related to the incident. The footage released was from Officers Juan Vallejo, Shauna McGuirk, and Patrick Hanlon, and Batista said the videos mark the “first batch” to be released.
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The police department is requesting the charges against the teen girl to be dismissed “given the totality of circumstances,” Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier said. In the body camera footage, the teen girl is seen pushed to the ground after she allegedly put an infant in danger and ran after the vehicle.
“It is my hope that releasing all of the body-worn camera footage and establishing a clear policy on how municipal employees are to engage with ICE agents is the first step in repairing any unintentional harm and can help determine how, as a community and a municipality, we respond in these situations,” Batista said.
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Batista also issued an executive order “reaffirming how the Worcester police interacts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The executive order dictates that municipal employees and officers won’t inquire about immigration status, won’t initiate investigations or arrests on the basis of immigration status, and won’t hold anyone on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer.
City workers, including police, also won’t work with federal agents to enforce civil immigration law, except to assist with officer safety, to ensure public safety, to set traffic perimeters during a federal operation, to provide a police escort, or to help detain someone wanted on a criminal arrest warrant, according to Batista’s executive order.
In Worcester, nearly a quarter of the 200,000 people are foreign-born, according to census data.
Video: ‘They have the jurisdiction,’ officer says
On the morning on May 8, Police responded to reports that 25 people were surrounding a federal agent. Police arrested the teen girl and Ashley Spring, a candidate for Worcester School Committee, after ICE drove away with the girl’s mother, Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira, in a chaotic incident that’s sparked multiple protests in Worcester.
In the video, multiple neighbors can be seen confronting police and federal agents, while Ferreira de Oliveira’s daughters cry and take turns holding a young infant. City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj is seen holding the teen girl before the girl was arrested, while the teen holds onto the sideview mirror of the vehicle where ICE put her mother.
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As Hanlon approaches the scene, the two daughters are seen screaming and crying while ICE walks the mother to an unmarked SUV. According to reports, ICE allegedly lured the woman of her home using her family members, claiming she needed to take custody of her grandchild, before detaining her.
Hanlon first tries to calm down the crowd, telling them to “stop” before walking behind ICE.
Worcester arrests
“It’s ICE. They’re taking a mom, and everybody’s freaking out about it,” Hanlon is heard saying in his footage. “They have the jurisdiction, we’re trying to get them out of here, and now everybody’s standing in front of the car.”
At one point, he calls Haxhiaj’s name and grabs the councilwoman as she tries to grab the mother from ICE agents. “They’ll explain,” he tells the daughters. Neighbors and Haxhiaj tell him that ICE won’t, and that ICE hasn’t produced a warrant.
“I’m not supporting anyone,” Hanlon says when someone tells him he’s helping ICE. “They have the jurisdiction.”
In McGuirk’s videos, she appears to push Haxhiaj away from the car and from the older daughter, who is the mother of the infant. The teen girl, whose face is blurred, is then seen taking the infant from her sister and standing in front of the unmarked ICE car.
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“Think about the child, okay? That’s a baby. You’re endangering a baby,” McGuirk is heard saying to the teen, who is crying. It’ i’s unclear from the video if the daughters understand English. The teen then gives the baby to someone else and speaks in Portuguese. At one point, she grips the hood of the vehicle.
A few minutes later, as the vehicle pulls away, McGuirk runs to the screaming teen as she’s being held by people who appear to be ICE agents. McGuirk and another officer then hold the girl’s hands behind her back and push her face-down onto the street to handcuff her. McGuirk walks the teen away from the scene, and she speaks to a translator.
The teen girl was charged with reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, but Batista said Friday that the police department asked for those charges to be dismissed. Her identity has not been released.
“But, it is important to emphasize that assaulting or interfering with law enforcement officers as they carry out their duties is never acceptable,” Police Chief Paul Saucier said about dropping the charges. “The Worcester Police Department remains committed to fulfilling our responsibilities of protecting all residents of the City of Worcester.”
Spring was also seen on body camera footage. She pleaded not guilty to charges including assault and battery on a police officer with a dangerous weapon, referring to the “unknown liquid” she allegedly sprayed at them. The incident didn’t appear on body camera footage, but she told Vallejo that it was water.
ICE arrested Brazilian woman who is facing assault charges
Previously, the Department of Homeland said that ICE agents detained Ferreira de Oliveira, who was arrested by Worcester police in February for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a pregnant victim. According to court records, Ferreira de Oliveira allegedly hit her pregnant daughter with a phone charger cable, causing visible welts on her arm, police wrote. She required a Portuguese interpreter, the court records said.
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Ferreira de Oliveira, originally from Brazil, was initially arrested Feb. 1 and pleaded not guilty. According to court dockets, Ferreira de Oliveira is scheduled appear in court again in July. The Worcester County Sheriff was ordered to arrange for her presence from Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island.
Since her arrest, hundreds have gathered for protests in Worcester against ICE’s actions in the city and Worcester police’s role in the May 8 incident. At a City Council meeting, which was moved to Zoom due to “public safety concerns,” scores of residents rebuked the police’s actions on Eureka Street and referred to the Department of Justice’s report on the Worcester police, which found that officers committed a large number of civil rights violations.
Thomas Duffy, the president of Worcester Police Patrol Officers’ Union, said in a statement that the body camera footage shows that officers acted “compassionately and professionally.” Duffy previously claimed that Haxhiaj assaulted police officers at the scene.
“The treatment of our officers by crowd members with hostile intentions was dangerous and unacceptable,” Duffy wrote. “Worcester’s officers, attempting to balance an emotional situation, an actively resistant crowd, and an elected official whose example to that crowd was to violently oppose the police, used the appropriate amount of force and discretion under the circumstances.”
Haxhiaj did not immediately reply to a request for comment Sunday night.
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