A 57-year-old Rochester man says he was pepper-sprayed, shocked with a stun gun and left on the side of the road after federal agents tried to detain members of his lawn care crew.
“I fell and I fractured my wrist, and they just left me there like I'm an animal,” said Hipolito Mateo, speaking on his front lawn in northeast Rochester after returning home from urgent care.
"They just left me there," he continued. “I can't move. And luckily that I was able to roll myself to the curb, because I know I heard a vehicle coming.”
He spoke to the media as a small group of supporters gathered on the sidewalk. His workers are from Venezuela and elsewhere but have all required paperwork, he said. Local immigrant advocates say they have seen an uptick in enforcement activities of late.
His account, backed up by a witness, is that agents in multiple trucks swarmed his and two other vehicles around 8:30 a.m. Monday as they made their way down Northland Avenue. They were headed to a job site.
He had noticed the unmarked vehicles, and saw a man inside using a radio as he passed.
“Everything went crazy,” Mateo said, describing the events, “because a whole bunch of them came out, I came out, my workers came out, and like I said, I just ran over there to see what's going on.”
By his and the witness' account, he was not aggressive, but there seemed to be some confusion and agents started pushing him out of the way. Mateo is hard of hearing. The agents did not identify what agency they were with but some had "ICE" written on their vests, he said, others read “police.” Rochester police confirmed it was a federal law enforcement operation.
Mateo said he was sprayed in the face and back of the head, shocked at least once as he turned away, and fell on the street.
The witness, Dave Quinones, lives near where the traffic stop happened. He, too, had noticed an unmarked vehicle as he was returning home, which made him linger outside for a bit to see what was going on.
"And like a couple minutes later," he said, "I seen a car coming down the street, and black trucks just appeared out of nowhere."
It appeared agents were trying to get one of the workers out of a vehicle, he said. Mateo was trying to translate or tell the agents they had the wrong person, "but they wasn't playing," Quinones said. "They didn't hesitate spraying him or tasing him.
"It really didn't look professional, it didn't look coordinated, it didn't look safe at all the way they went about the situation," he said. "It was school buses still out, kids going to school, and they had all that (expletive) going on."
When the workers sped off, with federal agents in pursuit, Quinones said, "they just left the one guy on the ground, tased up, maced up, and it was just, it was fast, it was crazy."
Quinones came to Mateo's aid, offering water to flush his eyes. The prongs from the stun gun were still in his back.
"They ain't called no medic, no ambulance or nothing for me," Mateo said. "They just left me there like I'm a dog. I'm a civilian. I'm a United States citizen. ... I was born here, Rochester, New York, at Highland Hospital in 1969."
Hours after the encounter, at least four unmarked vehicles, some with agents inside, were parked on his street and an adjoining one.
“I'm not here trying to break no law,” Mateo said. “I’m just looking for explanation, you know? You come and talk to me and ask questions, I'm willing to answer questions, but the way they did me is not, is not acceptable.”
At least one agent appeared to be recording the activities at Mateo’s house. They waved a reporter on when approached. An ICE spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Border Patrol confirmed their agents were not involved.
"They've been sitting out here for almost three and a half hours like they have nothing else to do, and it's alarming,” said Maria Garcia with immigrant advocacy group Enlace, referring to the agents.
“You know, I have families that are talking about their kids right now, like, do their kids get off the bus? What are they gonna do?” she continued. “And this is real conversations that I think needs to start happening at a community level about, you know, having more family preparedness clinics and handling these situations as, we know, this is about to get worse.”
