A protester was acquitted on Wednesday for charges that he assaulted a federal agent during generalized protests against immigration repressions in Los Angeles, only a few hours after one of the faces of President Trump's application policies took the position to testify against him.
The head of the US Border Patrol sector. UU. Gregory Bovino, the shameless agent who led a phalanx of military personnel to the MacArthur Park this summer, was called as a witness on Wednesday in a federal case of assault Crime Minor against Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of hitting a federal agent.
Bovine, who flew to testify from Chicago, the last city aimed at an increase in immigration application, said he witnessed the alleged assault committed by Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.
Bovino was interrogated by the defense about the previous comments that made undocumented immigrants as “scum”.
The jury returned with acquittal after a little more than an hour of deliberations.
The case could be an ominous Checkether for the performance of the United States. Bill Essayli, who has struggled to win accusations against those accused of committing crimes while protesting the application of aggressive immigration in southern California.
Prosecutors originally presented a position for serious crime against Ramos-Brito, which was reduced to a minor crime.
During the two-day trial, several videos showed that a border patrol agent pushes Ramos-Brito, but none clearly illustrated his alleged attack against the agent.
Equipped in his green border patrol uniform, bovine was the lonely border patrol agent to testify that Ramos-Brito dragged his arm back and hit an agent with an open palm in the chest.
Ramos-Brito and his lawyers declined to comment after the verdict, but were seen celebrating the acquittal in the federal court of the center. A spokesman for the United States prosecutor's office declined to comment.
In an interrogation, Federal Public Defender Cuauhtemoc Ortega interrogated Bovino about being the object of a bad behavior investigation a few years ago and receiving a reprimand for referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum, filth and garbage.”
Bovino said he referred to “an illegal specific criminal foreigner”, a Honduran citizen who, according to him, had raped a child and returned to the United States and had been caught in or near the Baton Rouge Border Patrol station.
“I said that about a specific individual, not on undocumented peoples, that is not correct,” he said.
Ortega went back, reading of the reprimand, which Bovino signed, stating that he was describing “illegal extraterrestrials.”
“They didn't say an illegal foreigner,” Ortega said. “They said you described illegal foreigners, I criminals, since slag, garbage and dirt are misconduct. Isn't it correct?”
“The report says that,” said Bovino.
Since June, more than 40 people have been accused of a variety of federal crimes, including assault officers and interfering with the application of the immigration law, either in the protests of the center or in the scene of immigration raids throughout the region this summer, said the office of the United States lawyer in Los Angeles this week.
The case of Ramos-Brito was the first to go to trial.
To finish arguments, Ortega accused the border patrol agent at the center of the case of lying and bovine of “trying to cover him up.” He cited the past man of cattle as evidence that he houses bias.
But prosecutors backed away with that, with ASTES. We Atty. Patrick Kibbe arguing that the defense “wants you to believe that there is a great conspiracy against Ramos-Brito. These officers do not know him.”
Kibbe acknowledged that the previous statements of cattle were not professionals.
“Does it have something to do with what you saw on June 7? No,” Kibbe said. “It's not about the application of immigration … It's about whether the defendant hit Agent Morales.”
A jury who spoke with a Times journalist out of the court said that Bovine's testimony “had no impact” on his decision. The lack of video evidence in the case led him to vote not guilty, said the jury.
The case focused on a protest outside the Paramount Business Center, on the other side of Home Depot Street.
The tensions were already high, and federal officials assaulted a retail and distribution warehouse in downtown Los Angeles in early June, arresting dozens of workers and a senior union official.
In the Paramount complex, which houses national security research offices, protesters began arriving around 10 am on June 7. Among them was Ramos-Brito.
Several videos touched in the court showed Ramos-Brito and another man cursing in the border patrol agents and leaving their faces with fists with balls. At one point, Ramos-Brito approached multiple border patrol agents that seemed to be Latin and said “you are Af, misfortune if you are Mexican.”
Kibbe said that, although many protesters were demonstrating “passionately”, Ramos-Brito crossed a line when hitting the United States border patrol agent, Jonathan Morales.
“There is a constitutional right to protest peacefully. It is a crime to hit a federal officer,” Kibbe said.
Federal Public Defender M. Bo Griffith, however, said Ramos-Brito was the victim of an assault, not vice versa.
Both social networks and the chamber images used in the court clearly show that Morales pushes Ramos-Brito first, sending him back in the busy intersection of Alondra Blvd. while the images show Ramos-Brito marching towards the agent with the fists with the fall, no angle clearly captures the alleged assault.
Apart from Morales, three other agents took the stand on Tuesday, but none said they saw Ramos-Brito hit Morales. None of the agents testified were equipped with cameras used that day, according to the assistance of the border patrol. Chief Jorge Rivera-Navarro, who serves as Chief of Cabinet of “Operation in General” in Los Angeles.
According to Navarro, some of the border patrol agents that swarm in recent months come from stations that normally do not use chambers worn by the body. He testified that since then he has issued an order that led the cameras to distribute agents who work in Los Angeles.
The clash that led to the assault position began when Ramos-Brito approached the border patrol agent of the United States, Eduardo improved, who said he repeatedly asked Ramos-Brito to move to the sidewalk while the protest blocked traffic. The video shows improved by placing his hand on Ramos-Brito's shoulder twice, and the defendant takes it out.
At that time, Morales, a 24-year-old veteran of the border patrol, said he thought he needed to intervene and unwishly the situation between his fellow agent and bouquets. He did it by pushing Ramos-Brito backward at the intersection, according to the video reproduced in the Court. Morales said Ramos-Brito charged him while cursing and threw a blow to the top of his chest and throat.
In the interrogation, Griffith faced Morales and improved with inconsistencies between the descriptions of the event that they previously gave to a national security investigations and their testimony in the Court. It was not the first time that such discrepancy affected the case.
Federal prosecutors previously withdrew charges against José Mojica, the other protester who was arrested next to Ramos-Brito, after video images questioned the testimony of an immigration application agent.
According to a investigation summary of the Mojica arrest previously reviewed by The Times, improved said that a man was shouting on his face that he was going to “shoot him”, then hit him in Paramount's protest. The officer said that he and other agents began to persecute man, but were “arrested by two other men”, later identified as Mojica and Ramos-Brito.
The video reproduced in the Court on Tuesday and previously informed by the Times shows that the sequence of events did not happen. Ramos-Brito and Mojica were arrested in a pile of dog agents after Ramos-Brito supposedly hit Mojica. There was no persecution.
Ask about the case of Mojica in July, a national security spokesman said they could not comment on the cases “under active litigation.”
The defense lawyers said Ramos-Brito suffered multiple bruises on his face, neck and back and had cuts and scratches in his body for being dragged by the pavement later.
According to his lawyers, the only previous interaction of Ramos-Brito with the police went to drive without a license.
