“You illegal?”
by digby
Maybe we could require undocumented immigrants to wear some kind of insignia on their clothes to make it easier to identify them when they get hit by a truck. Why should police even have to ask?
Everything was recorded on the body cameras of the police who responded to the accident.
Marcos Antonio Huete, a 31-year-old Honduran immigrant, was lying on a sidewalk next to his bicycle after being hit April 27 by a GMC Sierra pickup truck on his way to work in Key West in the Florida Keys.
“You illegal? Are you a legal citizen or no? Speak English? You got ID? Passport, visa, or what? a Monroe County sheriff asked Huete insistently, according to the video.
Still on the ground, Huete answers with monosyllables before using a cell phone to call his sister, who arrived at the scene soon after.
Lea este articulo en español
Hours after the accident Huete left hospital on crutches and was sent to the Krome Detention Center near Miami, where he has spent almost a month in detention pending possible deportation.
According to his sister, Olga Huete, after he was discharged from the hospital a police officer told them to return to the scene of the accident. “He did not tell us why, but we went back because my brother had not done anything. We had no reason to flee.”
Fined and detained by the Border Patrol
Once there, he says he was fined $75 by a Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FHP) officer for causing the accident. The incident report accuses Huete of obstructing/hindering traffic and listed his injury severity as “possible.”
Huete allegedly “darted out in front” of the pickup as it turned right across a marked crosswalk striking the rear tire of Huete’s bicycle. The officer decided that the driver, a 45-year-old Key West woman, was not at fault.
Then Border Patrol agents showed up and asked to see Huete’s papers, suspecting him of being undocumented.
Olga Huete says that while they don’t have papers, she is outraged by what she called the lack of justice in blaming her brother after he was the victim. She said the woman driving the pickup was allowed to drive away “as if it was nothing.”
“The fact that we do not have papers does not mean that we do not have rights,” she said.
In a statement to Univision, the Border Patrol said that FHP communicated with its agents “to assist in the identification of the subject (Huete).” However, he says that such communication between the agencies is “rare.”
It’s rare. But it’s getting less rare every day.
.