INS Incident Was Retaliation for Criticism, Latino Says

Cypress Park activist Art Pulido thought everyone knew he was an outspoken advocate for his northeast Los Angeles community. For example, he recently lambasted the city Recreation and Parks Department officials for what he said was a lack of programs for the area’s children.

Not everyone, it turns out, knew about him.

Agents for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service appeared at a community meeting last week that Pulido was about to head at a Cypress Park recreation center and took him away on suspicion of being a career gang member from Mexico who is in this country illegally. As horrified people watched, the agents handcuffed the 44-year-old Pulido, who protested that he was born in the United States.

“I was born at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital!” Pulido insisted. “Check it out!”

The three unidentified INS agents, backed up by five Los Angeles police officers, weren’t impressed. “I’ve heard that a thousand times,” Pulido recalls one of the agents telling him. The agents refused to answer his questions, he added.

According to an INS official, the agents were working from a physical description that led them to believe he was Arturo Pulido Mejia, a criminal street gang member who reportedly lives in the town of Bell.

“If I’m from Bell,” Pulido asked the INS agents, “what am I doing at a community meeting in Cypress Park?”

They were unmoved. Their paperwork indicated that their man had a scar on his nose. Art Pulido has a scar on his nose.

After nearly an hour at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center downtown, the agents realized their mistake and an agitated Pulido was released. He was told he could catch a bus to return to Cypress Park.

An outraged Pulido at this point insisted that the agents drive him back to the meeting, which was called to hear complaints about the manager of the Cypress Park Recreation Center.

They did so, but only after they handcuffed him again, Pulido said in an interview Monday.

“I am disgusted,” he said. “I thought this was the United States of America.”

Pulido suspects that Recreation and Parks Department officials, unhappy about his criticisms, may have tipped off the INS agents about the meeting last Wednesday night at the recreation center.

Officials with the city Department of Recreation and Parks did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment. John McAllister, assistant INS director in Los Angeles for investigations, would not disclose the source of the tip.

Pulido’s attorneys, Humberto Guizar and Luis Carrillo, both of Los Angeles, think the incident is another example of an abuse of power by the federal immigration agency.

“Looking at the circumstances, it looks like the arrest was designed to discourage Mr. Pulido from being involved in his community,” Guizar said. “To be treated this way shocks the conscience. It’s outrageous.”

Carrillo wants the U.S. Justice Department, the parent agency of the INS, to investigate.

McAllister said the agents acted properly when they detained Pulido, believing the scar and the name fit the description of the man they were after. But after a check of fingerprints did not match, the agents properly released Pulido, McAllister said. Appraised of Pulido’s assertion that he was handcuffed again when he was taken back to Cypress Park, McAllister said, “I doubt that happened. What would be the point to that?”

The INS official also said he didn’t know if an apology was forthcoming.

Pulido, whose family has lived in Cypress Park for many years, has been an outspoken critic of City Hall since the killing of 2-year-old Stephanie Kuhen in a 1995 gang shooting, which drew nationwide attention to the tiny blue-collar, largely Latino community. He is chairman of the Cypress Park Advisory Council, a citizens group that formed after the youngster’s killing and has criticized embattled City Councilman Mike Hernandez for failing to address problems there.