Great Barrington — At about 11 a.m. on Friday, May 30, federal agents who arrived in black cars, dressed in military clothing but were without identification, grabbed a landscape gardener from his work outside Creative Building Solutions on Maple Avenue.
The agents forced him into a car and drove him away to an unknown location.
The Berkshire Edge has spoken with Linda Shafiroff and Sarah Stiner, co-owners of Creative Building Solutions, who were present when the abduction took place.
Both Shafiroff and Stiner tried to intercede, as the video above shows.
The gardener, whose identity is not known, is not their employee. He works for a landscaping company that maintains their property.
During the incident, Shafiroff recorded the video of the agents being confronted.
According to Stiner, she noticed a blacked-out SUV sitting in their private parking lot several hours before the gardener arrived for work.
As soon as the man arrived at their location, several other cars pulled up and additional agents emerged.
By the end, there were up to eight agents in up to four cars.
Shafiroff arrived on site after the incident was already in progress and immediately began taping the activity.
As her video reveals, she insistently asked them to identify themselves and to show a warrant. Their only concession to her requests was to show a little police badge which Shafiroff said looked like something you could buy online. “The intimidation level was what was most disturbing,” Shafiroff said. “They were covered up in masks, hoods, and vests, and no ID’s. They did not behave like police officers. Police officers are respectful. They know people have rights. These guys were like thugs.”
At one point, the man took out of his pocket a little red card provided by an immigrant aid organization that listed his rights with instructions on how to respond to federal agents.
According to Stiner, the agents showed no interest, brushed it aside, and insisted that the man had no identification.
The agents implied, as shown in the video, that the man was being arrested for drunk driving. The Berkshire Edge has since heard from a relative that the man does not know how to drive, has no car, and his only means of transportation is his bicycle.
“To have someone just taken off your property without showing any warrant or ID is very unsettling,” Stiner said. “Who knew who they were? None of them had identification and they were not even fully uniformed. They were all wearing sneakers or street shoes, not official-looking shoes.” Stiner contacted Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti who told her he knew the agents were in the area but that his department did not co-operate with them.
He forwarded to her a guidance memo from the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
Stiner says she is not letting this go.
She told The Berkshire Edge that she wants to know about what rights citizens have when ICE takes people away.
She has already spoken to a civil rights attorney who told her that her parking lot is not public property and that the agents had no right to be stalking their target there. She is also planning to contact the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for guidance.
“This is heartbreaking and very unsettling,” said Stiner. “I’m sad for all of us…every single one of us.”
As of press time, the family of the detained man told The Berkshire Edge that they have not heard from him.
Previous stories:
March 20: ICE rounds up individuals throughout Berkshire County
March 23: ICE sightings at Allendale Plaza in Pittsfield
May 6: Great Barrington man in his 20s, reportedly a Mexican national, apprehended by ICE agents
