An immigrants rights group is demanding that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Attorney General Rob Bonta launch an investigation into the death of Carlos Montoya, a Guatemalan father who was fatally struck by a car on August 14 as he allegedly ran from federal agents who were abducting people outside a Home Depot in Monrovia, California.
“The people of California have a right to know what happened on that day,” the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) said in a press release on August 26. “We demand the state to release its own report — one that tells the truth, names the victim, holds federal agents accountable, and honors the dignity of all people, regardless of their perceived immigration status.”
Newsom and Bonta did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The group issued its call the day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) posted an announcement about Montoya’s death, almost two weeks after it occurred. The agency stated that an “unknown pedestrian” was “struck by a vehicle on Interstate 210” at about 9:50 am on the morning of August 14, “approximately 250 feet north of the Home Depot parking lot where the USBP [U.S. Border Patrol] enforcement action had taken place earlier that morning.”
CBP goes on to claim that it learned of Montoya’s death from media reports and that the agency subsequently interviewed “USBP personnel involved in the enforcement action.” An agent, who is not named in the announcement, said that “he pursued a man on foot north out of the Home Depot parking lot but abandoned his foot pursuit when he observed the man run up an I-210 exit ramp toward the eastbound lanes of the freeway.”
“The BPA reported that he climbed the retaining wall which runs parallel to the exit ramp and shouted a warning to the suspect about the dangerous freeway traffic,” the announcement continues. “The BPA stated he then turned around and returned to the Home Depot parking lot to assist in the enforcement action and did not witness the man being struck by a vehicle.”
In the announcement, CBP only identifies Montoya as an “unnamed pedestrian,” despite widespread coverage of his death. NDLON called CBP’s statement “dehumanizing, dishonest, and disgraceful.”
“Carlos Montoya was not an ‘unknown pedestrian,’” the group said in a press release. “He was a beloved father and grandfather, and a member of our community. He died while fleeing a reckless, unnecessary immigration raid conducted by Border Patrol agents who descended on a Home Depot parking lot — where day laborers, like Carlos, gather every morning in search of work, not trouble.”
At the time of his death, Montoya had been living in the United States for about three years, earning money to support his family in Guatemala. His eldest daughter, Ana Victoria, told Democracy Now! that her father hoped to own his own business so he could support his family.
“The last call I had with my dad was Wednesday at 11:00 at night, the day before he died,” she said. “And he told me, ‘Things are rough here. It is getting harder here. I just need to make a little bit more money so that I can go back to Guatemala.’”
On the same day that CBP posted an announcement on Montoya’s death, the agency released statements about five additional deaths — four that occurred in June and one that occurred in August. Of those, two involved people fleeing federal agents, one by car and one by foot. The woman who fled on foot was hit by a car and killed three days after Montoya, in El Paso, Texas.
The woman, only identified as an “adult female citizen of Ecuador,” exited a canal near the Rio Grande River and ran toward a chain link fence by the Cesar E. Chavez Border Highway, according to CBP. The agency claims a Supervisory Border Patrol Agent (SBPA) ordered the woman to stop in Spanish, “but she ignored him and climbed over the fence.”
“The SBPA observed her run across the eastbound lanes of the highway,” CBP says.
As she attempted to cross the highway, she was hit by a car and then a second vehicle ran over her body, according to CBP. She has not been identified by name by CBP.
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