A Metro Transit light-rail passenger who was videotaped being asked about his immigration status by an officer, and later was shocked with a Taser and arrested, was subsequently placed in the custody of federal immigration authorities pending deportation, according to federal officials.
Ariel Vences-Lopez, 23, was first booked into the Hennepin County jail on suspicion of fare evasion, obstructing an officer’s duties and giving a false name for the May 14 incident in Minneapolis.
Two days later, a man with the same name and date of birth was then transferred from the jail to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On Friday afternoon, ICE released a statement on Vences-Lopez, which said in full:
“On May 15, ICE officers placed an immigration detainer with Hennepin County (Minnesota) Jail on Ariel Vences-Lopez, from Mexico, following his arrest on criminal charges. He was transferred to ICE custody the following day for immigration violations. On May 23, 2017, a federal immigration judge issued Vences-Lopez a final order of removal. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States.”
Based on court records, the Pioneer Press deduced that Vences-Lopez was the arrested man. On Thursday, the newspaper asked ICE about his immigration status.
Vences-Lopez’s name was originally redacted from the Metro Transit police report on the incident, and officials said that the report included all that would be made public at the time.
After the Pioneer Press asked on Thursday which portion of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act allowed Metro Transit to redact the name, a spokesman said he would confer with the agency’s general counsel and return with an update.
Early Friday evening, Metro Transit confirmed Vences-Lopez’s name.
In the video of Vences-Lopez’s arrest, which has been shared nearly 15,000 times and viewed more than a million times on Facebook, a Metro Transit officer conducting a light-rail fare check asks the man, “Are you here illegally?”
The officer, identified in the incident report as Andy Lamers, appears to back off this line of questioning after being challenged by the man filming the interaction. The video sparked outrage from immigration activists and received national media attention.
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After the incident, which is the subject of an internal investigation, Metro Transit police reiterated their policy forbidding the agency’s officers from asking riders about their immigration status.
A Metro Transit spokesman said Friday that Lamers was no longer employed by the agency’s police force. Lamers, who is a police officer in New Hope, had worked part time for the Metro Transit Police Department since June 2001.
The charges stem from what allegedly occurred at the 38th Street Station in Minneapolis after the video — taken on the system’s Blue Line — was shot on the evening of May 14. What started as a confrontation over fare evasion “evolved into false information and obstructing,” the report on the incident said.
The report said Vences-Lopez kept standing when asked to sit on a bench, refused verbal commands and was “flexing his hands and blading his body toward the officer,” and when the officer grabbed the man’s arms “he tensed his body and tried to pull away, stepped onto and over the bench again.”
The officer used a stun gun on Vences-Lopez before arresting him.