Authorities investigate alleged ICE beating that left man with skull fractures
Minnesota and federal authorities are investigating allegations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers beat Alberto Castañeda Mondragón during an arrest in St. Paul last month, leaving him with eight skull fractures and hospitalization at a Minneapolis intensive care unit, according to The Associated Press. Investigators from the St. Paul Police Department and the FBI canvassed the shopping-center parking lot where Mondragón said officers wrested him from a vehicle, threw him to the ground and repeatedly struck him in the head with a steel baton.
ICE has denied those allegations, and instead has attributed Mondragón’s injuries to his own actions while in custody. The agency told investigators that while handcuffed, Mondragón attempted to flee and “fell and hit his head against a concrete wall.”
The competing accounts have set up a central question for investigators: what caused the fractures. Hospital staff who treated Mondragón told The Associated Press that a fall could not plausibly account for the brain hemorrhaging and fragmented memory they observed. The AP reported that a CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull, and that a doctor told the AP the injuries were inconsistent with a fall.
The investigation is also being complicated by delays in collecting evidence. In separate visits to the parking lot last week, local and federal investigators requested surveillance footage from at least two businesses. Employees told The Associated Press that their cameras either did not capture the Jan. 8 arrest or that the images had been overwritten because more than a month passed before law enforcement asked for the video.
Johnny Ratana, who owns Teepwo Market, an Asian grocery store facing the parking lot where the arrest occurred, described two visits from St. Paul police investigators. Ratana said the second time, a data technician sought to recover images that he said were automatically overwritten after 30 days, and he said FBI agents also visited the store looking for footage.
St. Paul Police Department did not respond to requests for comment, and the FBI declined to comment, The Associated Press reported. The AP also noted that the state and federal investigations come as the Justice Department has pursued other federal scrutiny involving ICE officers, including a separate probe tied to sworn testimony about an earlier Minneapolis shooting in which prosecutors dropped charges after video evidence contradicted officers’ accounts.
Amid the investigation, ICE officials have continued to describe the arrest differently from Mondragón’s version. Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement that on Jan. 8 ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Mondragón and that while in handcuffs he tried to escape, ran toward a main highway, and then fell and hit his head against a concrete wall. The AP reported that a Jan. 20 court filing said officers determined Mondragón overstayed his work visa only after he was in custody, which contradicted McLaughlin’s account of the arrest being targeted for removal.
Mondragón’s lawyers declined to comment on ICE’s statement, according to the AP. The report added that for weeks the Department of Homeland Security did not discuss aspects of Mondragón’s injuries, including whether officers recorded body-worn camera footage of the arrest, despite questions from the AP.
St. Paul police told the AP on Feb. 5 that they were aware of “the serious allegations” but could not investigate Mondragón’s injuries until he filed a police report. The report said that step was delayed because he was hospitalized and because of uncertainty over his immigration status, and that police finally took his statement a week ago at the Mexican consulate—by which point at least one business had already overwritten its surveillance footage.
Ramsey County’s chief prosecutor, John Choi, said in a statement that he expected prosecutors to investigate past and future allegations of criminal conduct by federal agents to seek the truth and hold accountable anyone who violated Minnesota law. The AP reported that Mondragón has been summoned to meet with ICE on Feb. 23 at its main detention facility in Minneapolis, raising the possibility that he could be returned to custody and deported while the investigations proceed.