ICE officers were conducting an enforcement operation last week, trying to apprehend Gaspar Avedane-Hernandez, who is in the U.S. without documentation.
Avedano-Hernandez was pulled over by the NYPD while driving in Brooklyn. Authorities allege he was using a forged paper temporary license plate from Connecticut, although nothing has been proven yet. Because of this, NYPD relayed his information to ICE officials.
Four days after, ICE officers were attempting to arrest him on the street.
Avendano-Hernandez was returning to his home from work to get something that he had forgotten when ICE agents descended on him with a warrant. Avendano-Hernandez lives with his girlfriend and her two sons Eric Diaz-Cruz and Kevin Yenez-Cruz. As ICE agents showed up, his girlfriend and sons came outside.
ICE officers tasered Avendano-Hernandez and Kevin Yenez-Cruz, who is 26 years old. Then, an agent shot Eric Diaz-Cruz.
The ICE agent "pointed straight to the face,” Kevin said about the shooting. “He didn’t even think twice. He just shot him. Eric had no weapons in his hand. Nothing.”
Eric is listed in critical but stable condition at the local hospital, with gunshot wounds to his face and one hand.
A video taken by a passerby shows Avendano-Hernandez struggling with the two agents, yelling in Spanish, when an agent zaps him with a taser as he is propped against a car.
Witnesses said a few seconds later, the shot was fired.
A law enforcement source said Diaz-Cruz was unarmed but described as holding something in his hand at the time of the shooting, though his brother said he had nothing in his hand.
“We saw people in the street, trying to get him handcuffed,” said a witness who wished not to be named. “There were a lot of people involved. The next thing I know there was this big bang.”
“I heard a shot and I ran,” she added. “I didn’t know if more shots were coming.”
ICE issued a statement describing Avendano-Hernandez as “a twice-removed illegal alien from Mexico with a 2011 assault conviction in New York City.”
The ICE statement noted its agents were “forced to locate Avendano-Hernandez on the streets of New York rather than in the safe confines of a jail” because city cops turned him loose after his arrest this past Monday. He was previously deported to Mexico in April 2011.
