A U.S. Marshal and an illegal alien detainee were shot during an immigration operation in Los Angeles on Tuesday.The incident occurred federal agents surrounded and boxed in a target vehicle on Tuesday, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported. The driver allegedly rammed federal vehicles in an attempt to escape, sources within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) further confirmed to the outlet.
Federal agents then opened fire, at which point the agent was struck in the hand by what is believed to have been a bullet ricochet, sources said. The illegal alien was also struck by a single bullet in the elbow. Both gunshot victims were transported to a local hospital and are expected to survive.
“These are the consequences of conduct and rhetoric by sanctuary politicians and activists who urge illegal aliens to resist arrest. Resisting arrest puts the safety of illegal aliens, law enforcement, and the public at risk,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“Our law enforcement officers are facing a more than 1000% increase in assaults against them including vehicle rammings by illegal aliens. We are once again calling on sanctuary politicians, agitators, and the media to turn the temperature down and stop calling for violence and resistance against ICE law enforcement.”
Last week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency because of immigration raids, claiming that businesses had been forced to shut down. The move is largely symbolic, however, as the Supreme Court has already overturned court rulings that attempted to halt immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Tuesday’s incident comes after multiple attacks on federal agents over the last several weeks. On September 24, two illegal alien detainees were killed and a third seriously injured when a far-left gunman indiscriminately opened fire on a Dallas ICE facility from a nearby rooftop.
The gunman, who scribbled anti-ICE messaging on unused shell casings, then turned the gun on himself.
In Chicago earlier this month, federal agents were attacked in an ambush-style assault in which they were forced to open fire on an armed assailant.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that one of the attackers, identified by prosecutors as Marimar Martinez, was injured by gunfire, and received medical treatment at a local hospital after the shooting, according to prosecutors. She and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz are accused of using vehicles to ram into a vehicle being driven by ICE Customs and Border Patrol agents in Chicago.
The Chicago Police Department was ordered not to respond to the scene, including to police radio traffic, internal documents, and multiple whistleblowers.
