Man fleeing immigration officers in Florida is struck and killed by tractor trailer, police say

It was at least the 10th death involving encounters with immigration agents since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the encounter Tuesday. In an emailed statement, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed it had conducted an operation and said the Florida Highway Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations were “investigating an incident resulting in the death of a Mexican national.”

The department did not respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press about the status of the other three occupants of the vehicle.

State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Democrat from Jacksonville, called the death a tragedy that resulted from an out-of-control agency.

“Whether it’s ICE agents gunning down a father in the streets of Houston, shooting a young man in Maine or conducting operations right here in Northeast Florida that result in a deadly crash, the outcome is the same: fear, chaos and death,” she said.

In two other cases, people died after fleeing agents and being struck by vehicles.

Last summer, a man running from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway. Homeland Security officials said that 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, of Guatemala, was not being pursued by immigration authorities when he was struck.

In October, a pickup truck fatally struck 24-year-old gardener Josué Castro Rivera, of Honduras, on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop. Authorities said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

Gene Johnson, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Man fleeing immigration officers in Florida is struck and killed by tractor trailer, police say

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