A man in South Carolina has been arrested for pretending to be an ICE officer. Police say he confronted a Latino man in a pickup truck in a “disturbing” video, telling him he would be sent back to Mexico.
After the arrest, another incident happened the next day at Temple University. A 22-year-old man and two others were accused of pretending to be officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Philadelphia police.
The cases are happening during strict immigration actions by the Trump administration at the U.S.-Mexico border and in big U.S. cities, which a Latino civil rights group described as unsafe.
“I believe this is only the start, unless we speak up and show others how this man will be treated in court,” said Roman Palomares, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, talking about the man arrested in South Carolina.
Sean Michael-Emmrich Johnson, 34, was arrested on Friday after he went to the Sullivan’s Island Police Department to turn himself in. He was arrested for one serious charge of kidnapping, pretending to be a police officer, and two lesser offenses. On Monday, the police department announced that they have received warrants to charge Johnson with two additional counts of theft.
Deputy Police Chief Monty L. Anders said that three Latino guys were in the pickup truck. No one was charged, and their names were not being shared, he said.
Johnson was freed on Saturday after paying his bond, according to jail records. He will be in court next month. He could not be contacted for a statement on Monday at the phone number provided for him.
On Wednesday, the cops on Sullivan’s Island got a call about someone driving a car without a license. Later, they announced in a news release that they found out about a “disturbing” online video. This led to a criminal investigation into the 911 caller, who they named as Johnson.
“This video displayed possible criminal actions by the caller that were not initially reported to police while on-scene,” they said.
Anders said the film is a few minutes long and does not show the whole incident, but he couldn’t provide more details.
In the video widely shared on social media, a white man, whom police identified as Johnson, stands at the driver’s-side window of a car with a Latino in the driver’s seat. A man in the passenger seat recorded the video.
The window is down, and a white guy asks the driver if he is from Mexico and says, “You’re going back to Mexico.”
The video shows a white guy taking the keys from the truck’s ignition, swinging them in front of the driver, and saying in a fake accent, “You can’t drive.” “You don’t have a driver’s license.”
“You are going back,” he says, informing the man that the cops are coming and that he can’t drive without a license.
At one moment, the driver shows his cellphone to the man at the window, and the man replies, “No, no, no, it’s done.” “It’s finished.”
The man driving is carrying a cellphone and speaking in Spanish. The man at his window then says, “Hey, El Chapo.” The driver keeps speaking Spanish, and the man at his window tells him, “Don’t be speaking that pig Latin in my f—— country, bro.”
“Don’t speak pig Latin here,” he says. “This is the United States.” People in America talk English.
He hits the cellphone out of the man’s hand and repeats, “We speak English, English.”
“Do you speak English?” “No,” he tells the driver, and then adds, “This is my job.” This is my truck. “I own this country.”
He tells another man by the car window that the driver doesn’t have a license and that he has the driver’s key.
The police department announced that after carefully reviewing videos and talking to witnesses, they got warrants for Johnson, who lives in Huger, about 30 miles from Charleston.
Andes, the deputy police chief, said that Johnson isn’t facing hate crime charges because South Carolina is one of the few states that doesn’t have hate crime rules.
Andes said on Monday, “We filed the maximum charges against him that the law allows.”
Palomares from LULAC praised the police force for pressing the full charges allowed.
Palomares said, “This shows the dangerous climate our community is dealing with.”
In Pennsylvania, Aidan Steigelmann was charged with conspiracy to pretend to be a public worker, according to court records. A police spokesperson from Philadelphia said that on Saturday night, two guys claimed to be ICE officers in order to enter a residence hall at Temple University.
A third man showed up, and all three of them left together, according to the cops.
A few minutes later, the police were informed that three men were claiming to be ICE agents at a nearby Insomnia Cookies shop. Two guys drove away in an SUV, but Steigelmann was taken into custody.
The police did not name the other two guys. They said the three were wearing black shirts that said “Police” on the front and “ICE” on the back.
Temple University announced that the three men at the cookie shop were the same ones who were not allowed into Johnson & Hardwick Residence Hall earlier that evening.
The school reported that two men pretended to be police officers, and a third man filmed what happened. A student was taken into custody and temporarily suspended while a probe takes place, according to the school, which did not name the student.
The school stated that neither Temple’s Department of Public Safety nor the Philadelphia Police Department has any information of federal ICE agents being on campus. “It’s very upsetting and disappointing to hear that this kind of behavior happened on our campus.”
The Defender Association of Philadelphia is defending Steigelmann, but they chose not to make a comment on Monday.
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