Suspects in a police-shooting incident in Washington and a separate shooting death of a 2-year-old boy in Maryland were in the country illegally, the government has confirmed.
Stephen Clause Rattigan is accused of shooting three Metropolitan Police Department officers on Valentine’s Day after they came to serve a warrant for animal cruelty. He is an illegal immigrant from Jamaica who has been deported before but snuck back in, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE also said Nilson Noel Trejo-Granados, accused of murder in the killing of a 2-year-old boy in Prince George’s County, is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who’d been ordered deported but was still on the loose.
Montgomery County had arrested him twice last year and each time ICE had placed a “detainer” request to be notified so he could be picked up for deportation proceedings. Montgomery County defied both detainers.
The toddler, Jeremy Poou-Caceres, was killed in the crossfire of a shootout on Feb. 8. His mother was also wounded, though police say those injuries aren’t life-threatening.
Mr. Trejo-Granados has been charged with first-degree murder and second-degree murder and is being held without bond.
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Four others have also been arrested for involvement in the shootout.
The incidents are part of a surge of crimes connected to illegal immigrants who were either caught and released by the Biden administration or protected by sanctuary cities, or in some cases both.
In Georgia, a 26-year-old Venezuelan Jose Antonio Ibarra, has been accused of killing a nursing student on a college campus. ICE said Mr. Ibarra snuck into the U.S. in 2022 and was caught and released under Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s “parole” powers.
He was arrested in New York last year but was released before ICE could place a detainer request. Now he is accused of killing Laken Hope Riley, the nursing student.
And in New York, authorities are blaming border catch-and-release migrants for the mob attack on two police officers last month.
ICE has taken custody of two of the suspects in the attack, identifying them as Venezuelan gang members who were caught and released at the border and who also had criminal entanglements before the police assault.