How a TikToker’s ICE patrol spiraled into a violent confrontation at a trolley stop

Arturo González started his morning on Nov. 18 the same way he has most days since the beginning of last summer — patrolling the neighborhood looking for potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity — when he came across an unmarked vehicle similar to models commonly used by federal agents.

González, a San Diego-based social justice activist, first began documenting events during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protest when he was 17.

González is unlike many others who started community patrols as federal law agencies increased immigration enforcement. He is unaffiliated with any formal organization, a one-man shop who is well known locally for broadcasting his patrols to more than 422,000 followers on TikTok and other social media platforms.

Over the summer, González began covering protests in Los Angeles during the Trump administration’s massive surge of ICE raids there, which sparked days of protest and Trump deploying Marines and National Guard troops in response.  

He then started raising money for street vendors who feared immigration crackdowns, which led him to follow the lead of groups like Unión del Barrio that search for undercover vehicles and film ICE agents during arrests. 

González gets up at 6 a.m. every day to patrol his neighborhood and nearby communities. He scans group chats and community pages to find ICE activity. Fellow activists and community members send him tips. 

On Nov. 18, González was patrolling near the 47th Street trolley station when he spotted a black van similar to unmarked vehicles commonly used by ICE. He entered the vehicle’s license plate into Carfax.com’s plate reader, and the results came back “invalid,” which convinced him he had found an undercover agent. 

González parked his vehicle in the red zone, put on his hazard lights, and began livestreaming.

“I put my face up to the glass, cupped my hands over my eyes, and I looked inside the van, and I saw a man sitting in the back seat with a bag of Hot Cheetos in his hand.”

González thought it could be someone sleeping in his car, and asked him in English and Spanish to identify himself.

Curious neighbors started gathering, and though González likes to gather more information before alerting residents to ICE’s presence, one of the neighbors announced that it was an ICE agent, bringing out even more people.

González then peered through a cracked window on the opposite side of the van.

“He wasn’t sitting on the chair with the hot Cheetos anymore,” González said. “He was now lying on the floor of the van. He got freaked out because more people were making noise.”

As more people gathered, the man got into the driver’s seat and drove off. Still livestreaming, González and another bystander got in a car and followed the van through Logan Heights. At a red light, González put his car into park and approached the van’s driver’s side window, in time to see the driver pull a mask over his nose.

The driver pulled onto I-805 South, and González stopped following, confident it was indeed an ICE agent. González dropped off his passenger and returned to the 47th Street station. 

Surrounded by masked federal agents

González concedes that his approach differs from the tactics of groups like Unión del Barrio’s, which simply look for federal agents and announce what they see. But he says he never interferes with agents’ operations. 

His interaction with the man in the van that day, however, set off a chain of events that escalated into a violent altercation with SDPD, ICE and community members.

When González returned to the station, his friend Jeane “Bleu” Wong, an educator and activist who came to check on him after community members alerted one another that agents were close by, was there. 

Shortly after, a white pickup truck with flashing lights and tinted windows pulled into the station. Wong said homeland security investigations agents arrived, and the situation escalated rapidly as agents in masks, unmarked gear, and HSI vests approached a crowd that hadn’t dispersed since the encounter started. 

Spokespeople for ICE, HSI and SDPD did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Several masked agents exited the vehicle and confronted González, asking to speak with him. He began another livestream, broadcasting to tens of thousands of his social media followers..

González said the agents told him he was being detained for “interfering in a federal investigation.”

As the federal agents approached, he said, they started grabbing at him, and González panicked and ran. He said he was frightened, thinking of other instances of immigration agents detaining citizens who film their actions.

“We’ve heard of that happening to American citizens,” he said. “All these things are racing through my head. All I could think was that I needed to get away.”

González decided running onto the tracks could stop the agent from chasing him. Shaky footage from his livestream shows González running up a flight of stairs and onto the tracks of the Orange Line as ICE followed.

He knew it was unsafe to remain on the railway, so he slipped through a hole in the fence and ran into an adjacent neighborhood, hiding in an empty construction site before eventually calling an Uber.

As González ran, the crowd of activists, social media followers, and community members grew, alerted by his day of livestreams.

One resident, 23-year-old Adan Morales Rubio, lives across the street from the station and had been following the livestream online when he suddenly heard González from his home while he fled. Rubio joined the growing crowd and was filming the scene just as federal agents temporarily detained Wong.

She tossed her phone, keys, and wallet to the ground as she was being restrained. 

“I went to grab her things when these two ICE ladies tackled me down on the right side of my head and slammed me down on the concrete,” Rubio said. 

Video from bystanders shows federal agents grabbing and punching Rubio, then shoving him to the ground, where he struck his head. Rubio estimated that 20 to 30 people had shown up at the trolley station when SDPD arrived and began separating federal agents and residents. 

Bystander video from Unión del Barrio shows Wong being pepper-sprayed by an agent wearing a Homeland Security Investigations vest while the agents take another man into custody. SDPD officers arrested one man for misdemeanor battery for allegedly striking a federal agent in the face. He was transferred to HSI, which plans to press federal charges. Wong says the pepper spray burned her face and eyes, and the treatment by officers left bruises on her arm and pain in her knee and shoulder.

“The parking lot was 100% peaceful until HSI arrived,” Wong said. “The chaos of November 18 was 100% created by HSI targeting activists.”

Rubio said EMT paramedics evaluated his injuries and determined he did not have a concussion. He later went to Paradise Valley Hospital to see a doctor for swelling on the entire right side of his face. SDPD officers took pictures of Rubio’s injuries, wrote down his name, and said to expect a call back, but did not give him a case number. He said his bruises were still visible a week later. 

No warrants

Tasha Williamson, a social justice activist who was at the station that day, went to the federal courthouse the next day on González’s behalf to see if he had any warrants for fleeing the scene. He didn’t, and he has not been charged with anything over the confrontation.

He said he now plans always to have someone working with him when he conducts patrols.

“I want to make sure when I’m confirming certain things, that I’m keeping a distance, and that I have an exit route so there’s no way for them to trap me,” González said.

No immigration-related arrests were made at the 47th Street trolley station that day. But González and Rubio both said ICE returned to the station the next three days.

Rubio said that the chaos at the trolley station irreparably changed his relationship with SDPD. 

“I really lost my trust in the police department,” Rubio said. “For the community, they were useless. They didn’t protect our community, they were protecting the ICE agents.”