A U.S. Army veteran who was detained during the massive immigration raid in Ventura County last week said Wednesday that he wants \u201ca full investigation\u201d into how he could have been held behind bars for three days despite being an American citizen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to me wasn\u2019t just a mistake,\u201d he said in a written statement. \u201cIt was a violation of my civil rights. It was excessive force.\u201d At a news conference Wednesday, Retes, who is 25 and the father of two children, said he had been on his way to his job as a security guard at Glass House farms on July 10 when \u201cI got caught in the middle between protesters and [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retes had been focused on his 3-year-old daughter\u2019s upcoming birthday party and didn\u2019t realize that Glass House, one of the largest legal cannabis operations in California, was being raided by scores of heavily armed immigration agents. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security later said they detained more than 360 people in the raid, including numerous undocumented immigrants who had been charged with crimes. As agents moved through the company\u2019s greenhouses, many workers fled in a panic. One worker, Jaime Alanis Garcia, 56, died after he fell three stories while trying to evade capture.<\/p>\n
Protesters and family members of workers, meanwhile, massed at the Glass House gates on Laguna Road, squaring off against federal agents, who deployed chemical agents and less-lethal ammunition. Retes said he had worked at Glass House as a contractor for the security firm Securitas for seven months. He said he unwittingly headed straight into that melee as he drove down Laguna Road to report for his afternoon shift.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no clue about it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I pulled up, I saw all the cars, I saw all the traffic, and I was just trying to make my way through.\u201d He did not get to work. Instead, he said, agents smashed his car window, pepper-sprayed him and dragged him out at gunpoint. \u201cI let ICE agents know that I\u2019m a U.S. Citizen, that I\u2019m American,\u201d he said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t care. They never told me my charges. They sent me away.\u201d Retes, who served in Iraq, said agents never told him why he was being detained at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. He was packed off, without a phone call, access to a lawyer, or even a way to clean the pepper-spray residue off his clothes and face, he said.<\/p>\n
While in custody, Retes said, he became so distressed that he was put on suicide watch, but he was still not allowed to contact an attorney. His sister and wife meanwhile gave tearful interviews to local television stations, pleading for information as to his whereabouts. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d his sister Destinee Majana told KABC-TV Channel 7 last week. \u201cWe\u2019re just asking to let my brother go. He\u2019s a U.S. citizen. He didn\u2019t do anything wrong. He\u2019s a veteran, disabled citizen. It says it on his car.\u201d \u201cI just don\u2019t know where he\u2019s at. I\u2019ve been up since 6 a.m. trying to call the sheriff\u2019s, the police department, Oxnard, Camarillo, Ventura,\u201d added his wife, Guadalupe Torres. \u201cThey say they don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, on Sunday, Retes said, guards came to his cell and told him he was going to be released. \u201cAn officer walked me downstairs,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI signed a paper to get my stuff back. That was it. They let me go.\u201d In a statement, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said: \u201cGeorge Retes was arrested and has been released. He has not been charged. The [U.S. attorney\u2019s office] is reviewing his case, along with dozens of others, for potential federal charges related to the execution of the federal search warrant in Camarillo.\u201d Retes said he is home in Ventura now, spending time with his children and \u201cenjoying being free. I took that for granted.\u201d He recovered his car, which he said still has a smashed window, numerous dents and a sharp tang of pepper spray.<\/p>\n
But he said he plans to file a lawsuit against the government over the way he was treated. \u201cWhat they did isn\u2019t right,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m here speaking for everyone who doesn\u2019t have a chance to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
The detention of George Retes, a U.S. Army veteran and American citizen, during an ICE raid in Ventura County raises serious questions about the handling of the operation and the treatment of individuals, particularly citizens, during such actions. The incident highlights the need for clear protocols to ensure that citizens are not mistakenly detained and that their rights are respected during immigration enforcement activities.<\/p>\n
A: George Retes, a U.S. Army veteran and American citizen, was detained for three days during an ICE raid in Ventura County. He was mistakenly taken into custody despite identifying himself as a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n
A: Retes reported being pepper-sprayed, having his car window smashed, and being dragged out at gunpoint. He was not allowed to contact an attorney or make a phone call and was placed on suicide watch while in custody.<\/p>\n
A: Retes has been released and has not been charged. The U.S. attorney\u2019s office is reviewing his case, along with others, for potential federal charges related to the ICE raid.<\/p>\n
A: Retes plans to file a lawsuit against the government over the way he was treated during his detention, citing a violation of his civil rights and excessive force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Army Vet Calls for Investigation After Being Detained for Three Days in ICE Raid Introduction to the Incident A U.S. Army veteran who was detained during the massive immigration raid in Ventura County last week said Wednesday that he wants \u201ca full investigation\u201d into how he could have been held behind bars for three days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/71917d2\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4032x2117+0+0\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb6%2F0e%2F0174619b42cbbff45f649e9e5897%2Fgeorge-retes1.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18525"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18528,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18525\/revisions\/18528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/los-angeles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}