LOS ANGELES — A 79-year-old man in Southern California filed a claim against the federal government Thursday for $50 million in damages, saying federal agents violated his civil rights when they tackled him during a Sept. 9 immigration raid at a car wash business.
Rafie Ollah Shouhed, the owner of a car wash in Los Angeles, suffered several broken ribs and chest trauma, elbow injuries, and has symptoms of a traumatic brain injury, according to the claim. Shouhed is a naturalized U.S citizen from Iran.
Video surveillance footage from inside the car wash shows a federal officer running in through a hallway. The agent encounters Shouhed and knocks him to the ground before running past him. In footage from outside the car wash, Shouhed walks toward a federal officer who appears to be detaining one of his employees. Shouhed briefly grapples with a second officer, before a third officer runs in and tackles him to the ground.
The claim was filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection.
In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said authorities arrested five people from Guatemala and Mexico “who broke our nation’s immigration laws” from the car wash and that Shouhed “impeded the operation and was arrested for assaulting and impeding a federal officer.”
Shouhed and his attorney V. James DeSimone denied the accusation at a press conference Thursday.
“What can I do for you? Can I help you?” Shouhed recalled saying to the officers.
He said he wanted to tell agents he had documents to show his employees were eligible to work. There is no audio on the surveillance footage.
“This is the way ICE is operating in our community,” DeSimone said. “They use physical force, they don’t speak to the people in order to ascertain who is there legally in order to do their job. Instead, they immediately resort to force.”
After Shouhed was detained, he said he showed an officer at the detention center his ID. He was held for 12 hours and released without charges, the claim says.
The agency has six months to settle or deny the claim, after which Shouhed can file a lawsuit in federal court.
Several other U.S. citizens have also filed civil rights claims against the government for being wrongly detained during federal immigrant enforcement operations in Southern California. They include Andrea Velez, who was detained June 24 on her way to work in downtown Los Angeles. She was held for two days and faced a charge for obstructing a federal officer that was eventually dropped.
Federal immigration officers have also come under scrutiny for their aggressive tactics in raids. While DHS has usually defended its tactics, the agency issued a rare rebuke of one of its officers Friday after he shoved an Ecuadorian woman to the floor at a courthouse in New York.
