An attorney who visited Salomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel at the hospital says the landscape worker was pulled over along with a family member in Southern Maryland and taken into federal custody Wednesday morning — well before the Salvadoran man was accused of riding in a van that rammed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The account by Alex Major, who also spoke to Serrano-Esquivel’s family, calls into question a version of events provided by federal immigration authorities, who claimed Serrano-Esquivel was a passenger in the van during a “targeted enforcement operation” when the driver steered toward officers and forced them to open fire.
The driver, Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, was shot and wounded. Serrano-Esquivel suffered whiplash, officials said. The officers were not injured.
Questions surround the violent confrontation on Christmas Eve in a neighborhood court in Glen Burnie. Neighbors recalled hearing gunfire and seeing officers pull one man out of the wrecked van. The incident brought another flashpoint amid a ramp-up in arrests by ICE and tense confrontations with members of the community.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security did not provide additional information Friday about the incident. When asked if it could confirm the time and location that Serrano-Esquivel was taken into custody, a spokesperson reiterated the agency’s version of events.
“This incident, which is still under investigation, comes as the extremist anti-ICE rhetoric and outright lies of politicians, the news media, activists, and violent agitators continue to fuel a more than 1,150% increase in assaults against ICE officers,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said by email. “Our brave officers are risking their lives every day to keep American communities safe by arresting and removing illegal aliens from our streets.”
Major, who is not an immigration attorney, said he is a client of the Serrano-Esquivel family’s landscaping business so they turned to him for help.
They called him after Serrano-Esquivel and a family member were pulled over by ICE on Route 4 near Dunkirk around 9 a.m. Wednesday. ICE took Serrano-Esquivel into custody at that time, the family told Major. Immigration officials said he was in the U.S. illegally.
Later that morning, family members told Major they received a phone call from Serrano-Esquivel on his way to the hospital. He told them he had been handcuffed and riding in an ICE vehicle when officers pursued a suspect in Glen Burnie before the crash.
One family member spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, Jose, to protect the family’s landscaping business from retaliation.
When Serrano-Esquivel was released from the hospital, he was allowed to call Jose, his brother-in-law. He told him he injured his neck and ankle because he could not catch himself when the vehicle crashed while his hands were cuffed.
Jose said he wants his brother-in-law’s name cleared.
When Major went to the hospital, he found Serrano-Esquivel handcuffed to a gurney in the hallway, he said. There were no apparent injuries, he said, but Serrano-Esquivel seemed dazed.
Anne Arundel Police responded around 10:50 a.m. to the 500 block of West Court for the shooting. After ICE agents fired at the vehicle, county police spokesperson Justin Mulcahy said, the van accelerated into the woods and crashed behind some homes.
A bystander’s video reviewed by The Banner showed a white van that had crashed into a tree behind several homes in the neighborhood. Several agents ran to the driver’s side door and pulled out a man, who was taken away on a stretcher. In the video, there was no sign of a second man inside the van.
The gunfire and car chase left neighbors shaken. Juan Ramirez and his children had just woken up on Christmas Eve when the commotion broke out.
“I was about to prepare my kids’ breakfast,” he said. “I heard some shooting — I thought it was the TV.”
Neighbor Catherine Thomas reflected on the incident while walking her dog Friday.
“Needless to say, it’s changed my feelings about what I thought was a quiet neighborhood,” she said.
Sousa-Martins, identified by immigration officials as the driver and who is from Portugal, has been living in the U.S. illegally for almost 17 years after his visa expired in February 2009, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where Sousa-Martins was hospitalized in stable condition, directed questions about his condition Friday to police.
No one answered the door at his home Friday in Northwest Baltimore. Neighbor Vicky Dominguez said he lives with two young children and would sometimes come by the house to help fix things.
“We see him outside playing with his kids a lot,” she said. “He seems like a great father.”
Banner photojournalist Kaitlin Newman and reporter Ellie Wolfe contributed to this article.
Correction: ICE provided the incorrect spelling of Salomon Serrano-Esquivel’s name.
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