‘Feel sorry for these people’: Video shows Baltimore Police response to ICE detaining parents outside school

As immigration officers detained two parents outside Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School during morning drop-off, frightened school employees turned to the Baltimore Police Department for help.

Body camera footage obtained by The Banner shows that the officers who responded had little more to offer than sympathy, underscoring the widening divide between local authorities and federal immigration officials.

“I feel sorry for these people because they live in this fear every minute of the day,” said Lieutenant Dixon, one of the officers who responded. His first name was not on the police report.

The officers arrived at Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle campus on the morning of June 11 after ICE agents detained parents Jesus Acevedo Sanchez and Adriana Gavilan Sanchez, who were dropping off their daughter.

Officers spoke to a speech therapist at the school who had reported the incident. Her name was redacted on the police report and in the footage.

Officer Parris Harley, the first of the two officers to respond to the school, told the speech therapist that the city Police Department does not usually get involved in ICE-related incidents.

“Our policies and the guidelines and laws we abide by, it seems like they operate totally different,” he said, adding that he had to call his supervisor in all ICE-involved incidents and was waiting for him to arrive.

Harley’s supervisor, Lieutenant Dixon, arrived minutes later and told the staff member that ICE is “not supposed to be on school property, hospitals or courtrooms.”

“But unfortunately, the political era we in now, they do what they want and there’s no repercussions,” said Dixon.

Dixon told the school staff member that she could tell the Baltimore City Public Schools Police to reach out to supervisors at ICE, “but it’s not going to do any good, to be honest with you.”

The school system’s police department is leading the investigation into the incident with help from the Baltimore Police Department. Lindsey Eldridge, a spokesperson for BPD, said in an emailed statement that when officers arrived, the agents and those detained were no longer there.

Baltimore Police Department policy states that officers are not allowed to “engage in, assist, or support immigration enforcement” unless there is an “articulated, direct threat to life or public safety.”

The detainments on a school campus during drop-off hours caught statewide attention in June, prompting responses from the state’s top politicians, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Gov. Wes Moore, who decried the incident. ICE pledged in the past that it would avoid operations at Maryland schools, but agents have inched closer to campuses in recent months.

Video of the incident showed Acevedo Sanchez pinned to the ground by the agents as his daughter leaned out of the window of a vehicle crying. The family was stopped on the driveway leading to a bus loop close to the front steps of the building, video showed. The staff member interviewed by the officers said she watched as ICE agents “dragged him out of the vehicle, abused him.”

The parents have since been released from immigration detention.

After hearing what happened from the staff member, Harley said, “Someone’s own kid shouldn’t witness that, let alone like the whole school.”