Worcester ICE raid has city on edge

WORCESTER — It was around 9:30 a.m. May 8 when a local hotline received the first report: A group of men who appeared to be immigration police had stopped a car on Eureka Street, with two young women and a baby inside.

Volunteer Jillian Phillips shot over in her car to witness the encounter.

“Everything was just sort of at a standstill," she said. "We didn't know what was happening.”

When Phillips and other supporters asked the agents, “Are they under arrest? Are they being detained? Do you have a search warrant?” she said the agents ignored them.

Dozens of protestors and onlookers arrived, followed by more than 30 Worcester police officers, in a standoff that ended in three arrests and a city on edge. The case is pitting city officials against angry residents, and it’s spurred threats of a crackdown by the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.

For this account, WBUR reviewed video, social media posts and police dispatch recordings of the events of that day and interviewed four people who were there, including immigration advocates and police. The encounter started when agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies descended, some in masks, some in tactical vests.

“For almost two hours, they had this family trapped on the side of the road here. They had a mom, who had a newborn baby,” said Phillips, a spokesperson for LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, a group tracking ICE arrests across the state.

The mom needed to change her baby, Phillips said, and she was uncomfortable doing it in front of men with guns.

The two women in the car were sisters, one of them just 17. They contacted their mother, Rosane Ferreira De Oliveira, for help with the baby.

When Ferreira arrived, it was still unclear if anyone was being detained, Phillips said. So she accompanied Ferreira — as well as one of the daughters and her baby — as they walked away to find a bathroom.

Then more confusion ensued: The agents caught up with them and moved in to arrest Ferreira.

“Then it's just chaos,” Phillips said. “People are screaming, they’re trying to get the mom.”

A group of activists surrounded Ferreira and began praying, Phillips said. Ferreira threw her arms around a city councilor.

Police dispatches reflect opposing narratives of what was unfolding. The first one suggested that ICE asked the Worcester Police Department for assistance.

“We have an ICE agent calling,” a dispatcher said in the recording. “They've got an officer over there who's allegedly being surrounded.”

A second call came in — apparently from one of the protestors, according to recordings obtained by local writer Bill Shaner and reviewed by WBUR.

“ A male called saying that there were 20 ICE officers there refusing to show a warrant,” the dispatcher said in the recording. “He kept asking for the police chief — said they were causing a riot. So a couple different stories.”

A handful of police were dispatched, and before long, 35 cops arrived, according to police records.

“At one point, I think every available officer went up there,” said Officer Thomas Duffy, president of the Worcester police union. “From the perspective of the first officers who arrived on scene, the biggest risk right now is to protect the safety of their federal agents based on the actions that they observed when they got there.”

The dispatches recorded Worcester officers calling for multiple wagons and zip-tie handcuffs, commonly used to detain large numbers of people. Another officer asked for a cruiser with loudspeakers to announce an unlawful assembly was underway.

Ferreira eventually ended up in an unmarked vehicle with New York plates, but the melee continued. Videos show her teenage daughter throw herself onto the hood of the car before she was arrested by Worcester police. School committee candidate Ashley Spring also grabbed onto the hood and was arrested — now she’s facing multiple charges.

For Duffy, it’s not hard to see why things escalated. A 28-year veteran of the Worcester Police Department, he said any time police have to arrest someone in front of their family, tensions can spike.

It didn’t help that the encounter was allowed to drag on, Duffy added.

“I think the reason they were on scene so long is that there were children involved,” he said, referring to the federal agents.

It wasn’t immediately clear why ICE had targeted Ferreira. The Department of Homeland Security later issued a statement saying she’d been previously “arrested by local police for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on a pregnant victim.” Court records show charges are pending against Feirrera, 40, from February. She allegedly hit her daughter with a phone cord.

Her lawyer, Sarah Amorin, said Feirrera is “presumed innocent right now.” She's being held at an ICE detention facility in Rhode Island.

An ICE spokesman told WBUR that Ferreira, a native of Brazil, was taken into custody because she is in the country illegally, and that the state criminal charges are a separate matter.

Meanwhile, the commotion on Eureka Street was yet another tumultuous ICE arrest drawing public dismay and inflaming sentiments on all sides.

Immigration advocates say they’ve received threats since news of the Worcester incident went national. And on Instagram, two police officers were doxxed this week.

Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty shut down City Hall at 5 p.m. on Tuesday and moved a City Council meeting online instead of in person, saying “ City Hall employees have been inundated with threatening, verbally abusive and disturbing phone calls.”

After a protest in front of City Hall, dozens of community members appeared at the virtual council meeting, excoriating police and city officials over the ICE incident. They demanded an investigation into police actions and for the city to clarify how police should or should not interact with ICE.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment on how agents handled the Worcester arrest.

Duffy has heard from fellow officers and reviewing bodycam footage. He said the kind of behavior officers faced on May 8 should not be tolerated.

“It wasn't just physical assault and touching,” he said. “It was actually obstructing the process of some of these individuals being taken into custody in a safe manner.”

Asked why Worcester police didn't do more to calm the situation, Duffy said it could have been worse: Police could have arrested 30 more people for their role in the altercation.

“Sometimes taking people into custody could also escalate the situation instead of deescalate it,” he said.

Duffy said he hopes temperatures cool in Worcester. But he also wants to see consequences for people who interfere with law enforcement.

That could be coming soon. This week, the top federal prosecutor for Massachusetts vowed to investigate — and possibly charge — anyone obstructing ICE operations.

In her statement, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley called recent alleged instances of interference "disturbing, to say the least." She said the conduct poses "significant public and officer safety risks. It is conduct that should be vilified rather than glorified."

Worcester advocate Jillian Phillips said that's a direct threat.

"We took it as everyone on Eureka Street that day was now facing potential federal charges," she said.

But Phillips said they’re not going to back down.

"Put my face," she said in a text message. "They won’t scare us. We will not be threatened to not protect our neighbors."