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Masked immigration officers wearing body armor blocked the driveway of a hospital emergency room in a heavily Latino Los Angeles neighborhood early on Saturday.
The officers assembled outside Adventist Health White Memorial Medical Center, where a detainee had been brought for medical treatment, according to Bill Essayli, the top Justice Department prosecutor in Los Angeles.
Erick Gasca, 31, lives near the hospital and got home on Friday night after an evening playing board games with friends. He said an “unprecedented” number of vehicles with tinted windows and no license plates were parked near the hospital's emergency room entrance. “I thought they were going to raid the hospital or something,” he recalled.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to explain the officers' presence there, though Essayli said two people were arrested for assaulting federal agents. “ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” DHS said in a statement. Some 30 residents and passersby gathered where the agents were operating. Footage shot by Gasca's cousin, Michelle Rivera, shows protesters shouting and officers pinning someone down.
The hospital said it wasn't involved. “White Memorial does not participate in immigration enforcement,”
