A 46-year-old Temecula man, possibly a federal officer, faces felony charges after a video surfaced apparently showing him pointing a gun at a teenage boy driving along the man’s street, ordering him to stop and questioning him.
The attorney for the Hispanic boy’s family, Greg Kirakosian, alleged in an interview Monday, Nov. 17, that the officer was mimicking the behavior of other federal officers who “are so emboldened” as the Trump administration pursues the mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Gerardo Uribe Rodriguez, 46, was booked into Southwest Detention Center on Nov. 11 on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, child endangerment and assault by a public officer, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said. Deputies served a search warrant at Rodriguez’s home that yielded evidence, a news release said.
Rodriguez could not be reached for comment. An email was sent to an address listed for Rodriguez, and email and phone messages were left for a woman who is possibly his wife. It was unclear whether Rodriguez had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Deputies were dispatched about 10:40 p.m. on Nov. 10 to the 32000 block of Daybrook Terrace.
A father told deputies that his 17-year-old son was stopped by a man in the roadway while the teen was driving in a residential neighborhood, the release said. The suspect displayed a badge and ordered the boy out of the vehicle at gunpoint, the Sheriff’s Department said. The juvenile complied and was eventually released to his parents, who called the department.
Rodriguez was arrested at home. He posted $40,000 bail and was released.
Warning: This video contains explicit language.
A video posted to YouTube by L.A. Taco shows a man standing in a two-lane street watching something in the distance. The man reaches into his waistband, pulls out a handgun and points it. As the pickup comes into view in the home-security video, the man yells, “Stop! Stop! Slow down! Slow down!”
The driver passes the man and hits the brakes as the man shouts, “Freeze! Police!” The man ordered the teen out of the pickup at gunpoint, the Sheriff’s Department said.
“You’re speeding in the … neighborhood,” the man says.
Kirakosian said the teen, who he declined to identify for safety reasons, is a U.S. citizen who had just dropped off a couple of friends after a get-together on that street. The teen lives nearby.
“He just asked weird questions about where he was going, where he was coming from,” Kirakosian said, citing his conversation with the teen. “He (the officer) was going to contact his parents. It wasn’t like, ‘Show me your citizenship (papers).’ “
A woman then went by and asked the man what he was doing. The man responded that he was conducting an investigation, the attorney said.
Kirakosian initially told media outlets that he believed that Rodriguez worked for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but now he believes, after talking with the boy’s family, that Rodriguez works for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Sheriff’s officials did not disclose Rodriguez’s employer. Email messages were sent to ICE and the Border Patrol on Monday morning, Nov. 17, seeking comment.
Kirakosian criticized the officer’s actions.
“I don’t know of a single law enforcement officer that would march down the road with their firearm at the ready position,” he said. “Let’s say he was a normal patrol officer … best-case scenario if this was a traffic ticket, he’d have the right to stop the vehicle and issue a citation, not pull his gun.
“That’s not how you stop the vehicle,” the lawyer said. “Using that degree of force to conduct a traffic stop … is an excessive show of force.”
The attorney said he believes the officer’s actions were a function of what he said was a troubling trend among some federal officers.
“Why did this guy do this?” Kirakosian said. “The only thing I can come up with is he is watching what his fellow agents are doing on a day-to-day basis in uniform. They are pulling over every brown person they want to conduct an investigation on and that is what he did.
“They snatch people, and if they need to snatch people out of a car, they do that,” he said. “That is why this is so scary. Lately, so many officers are so emboldened. They are doing it in their own neighborhoods like it is their personal Border Patrol checkpoint.”
The family has requested a restraining order against Rodriguez, Kirakosian said. Court records show a hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 2.
“They are scared for their safety,” Kirakosian said.
The Sheriff’s Department asked that anyone with information on the case to call Investigator Alyssa Morris at 951-696-3000.
City News Service contributed to this report.