A man running from an encounter with immigration and other federal agents in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer on Tuesday, authorities said.
It was the third death in a week involving encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following shootings in Texas and Maine.
The 28-year-old was among four occupants of a vehicle that stopped in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store in the St. Augustine area before 7 a.m. During an encounter with agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations, the four fled on foot, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Dylan Bryan said in an emailed statement.
The driver of the semi stopped and tried to help the man, Bryan said.
It was at least the 10th death involving encounters with immigration agents since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year.
It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the encounter Tuesday. In an emailed statement, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed it had conducted an operation and said the Florida Highway Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations were “investigating an incident resulting in the death of a Mexican national.”
The department did not respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press about the status of the other three occupants of the vehicle.
State Rep. Angie Nixon, a Democrat from Jacksonville, called the death a tragedy that resulted from an out-of-control agency.
“Whether it’s ICE agents gunning down a father in the streets of Houston, shooting a young man in Maine or conducting operations right here in Northeast Florida that result in a deadly crash, the outcome is the same: fear, chaos and death,” she said.
In two other cases, people died after fleeing agents and being struck by vehicles.
Last summer, a man running from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway. Homeland Security officials said that 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, of Guatemala, was not being pursued by immigration authorities when he was struck.
In October, a pickup truck fatally struck 24-year-old gardener Josué Castro Rivera, of Honduras, on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop. Authorities said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”
The Mexican government on Tuesday said it had asked state attorneys general in the U.S. to review the deaths of migrants in ICE custody or during raids for possible criminal prosecution.
