A third person dies in one week during an ICE operation in Florida

Shortly before 7:00 a.m. Tuesday, a vehicle carrying four occupants pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and gas station along State Road 16 near St. Augustine, Florida, about 35 miles south of Jacksonville. There, the men encountered officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations. All four ran. One of them, a 28 year old man, ran across the roadway and was struck in the right lane by a tractor trailer. He died at the scene. The truck driver stopped immediately and attempted to help.

What sets this scene apart from the cases of the past few days, yet ultimately tells the same story, is simply the absence of a gunshot. No officer fired a weapon, no firearm was involved, and yet another person is dead. Michel Foucault described a form of power that no longer has to kill because it governs life by shaping the conditions under which it unfolds, exercising its force precisely where it never has to touch anyone. The man in St. Augustine did not die by the hand of an officer. He died because their mere presence was enough to drive him into the path of traffic.

Read also our article: Enough - Shot Dead for Nothing: ICE Kills a Family Father in Maine Who Was Never Even the Person They Were Looking For

“You Tried to Run, Didn’t You?” - The ICE Agent Said as the Man Bled to Death

Who drove him into that road, and whether anyone was actually chasing him, remains unclear. A spokesperson for the Florida Highway Patrol said only that the pedestrian was struck in the right lane by a tractor trailer and died from his injuries at the scene, while the truck driver stopped immediately. Whether the victim had spoken to the officers at all has not been disclosed. The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday evening that officers had conducted an operation near St. Johns on July 14 and that the Florida Highway Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations were investigating an incident that resulted in the death of a Mexican national. The agency said it would provide additional information when available. It did not say whether the man had been the target of the operation.

The victim's identity has not been released. The whereabouts of the three other occupants, whether they escaped or are in custody, also remain unanswered, and the department did not respond to questions on that point. The vehicle was towed as part of the investigation. The fire department was the first to arrive at the scene. The St. Johns County Sheriff's Office and U.S. Customs and Border Protection referred all questions to ICE. Images from the scene show a Border Patrol vehicle present, and a Homeland Security source indicated that Border Patrol personnel may also have been involved. The eastbound lanes of State Road 16 between Outlet Mall Boulevard and Inman Road remained closed, causing heavy commuter traffic.

Read also our article: ICE Suspends Vehicle Stops

This is the third death in one week connected to immigration enforcement operations and at least the tenth since Trump's deportation campaign began last year. On Monday, officers in Biddeford, Maine, shot and killed 26 year old Colombian national Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who, according to the Department of Homeland Security, was not the individual they had been looking for. The week before, Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston. Federal authorities later acknowledged that he, too, had not been the intended target. Only on Tuesday did the administration order most vehicle stops suspended. In St. Augustine, that order would not have changed the outcome. No vehicle stop stood in the way here. A man ran.

State Representative Angie Nixon of Jacksonville described the death as the result of an agency that has spun out of control. Whether ICE officers shot a father on the streets of Houston or killed a young man in Maine, or whether they carried out operations in northeast Florida that ended in a fatal crash, she said the result remained the same: fear and chaos, ending in death. An immigrant advocacy organization in Florida said the man's actions reflected the fear now spreading through immigrant communities after the shootings in Texas and Maine. The details may remain uncertain, but one fact, the group said, is beyond dispute: people are dying in the chaos and fear created by the agency's operations.

Der Fall reiht sich in eine Kette, die längst kein Zufall mehr sein kann. Im vergangenen Sommer starb der 52-jährige Guatemalteke Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, als er vor Beamten von einem Baumarkt in Südkalifornien floh und auf einer Schnellstraße bei Monrovia von einem Geländewagen erfasst wurde. Die Behörden erklärten damals, er sei gar nicht verfolgt worden. Im Oktober erfasste ein Pick-up auf einer Schnellstraße im virginischen Norfolk den 24-jährigen Gärtner Josué Castro Rivera aus Honduras, der bei einer Verkehrskontrolle geflohen war. Die Kontrolle sei Teil eines gezielten, auf Erkenntnissen beruhenden Einsatzes gewesen, hieß es, und der Mann habe sich heftig gewehrt. Ebenfalls im vergangenen Sommer starb ein Landarbeiter auf der Flucht vor einer Razzia auf einer Cannabisfarm im kalifornischen Ventura County. Über alle Fälle haben wir im Magazin berichtet.

The Mexican government on Tuesday asked attorneys general across the United States to examine whether the deaths of migrants in custody or during immigration raids warrant criminal prosecution. On the same day, Trump announced that he was nominating former Oklahoma police officer Lance Schroyer to serve as the next director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Read also our article: 17 Dead in Trump's ICE Custody - Now Mexico Is Filing Criminal Complaints in the United States

Our investigation into this tenth death is ongoing and far from complete. As we indicated yesterday, we suspended another investigation so we could dedicate a team to Florida, while most of our reporters remain on the ground in Biddeford and Washington. What remains is a morning when no one pulled the trigger and yet someone still died. A man ran, a truck driver slammed on the brakes, and the very agency whose presence set that chain of events in motion is now investigating, alongside the Florida Highway Patrol, what happened at that intersection. The people conducting the investigation were standing there themselves.