Man fleeing ICE agents near Danbury courthouse hit by car

A 25-year-old man was struck by a police car while victim is placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance on White Street Friday morning, July 6, 2018. Witnesses said they saw the man dash out of Superior Court and onto the road before the car hit him, flinging the man at least 10 feet in the air. less A 25-year-old man was struck by a police car while victim is placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance on White Street Friday morning, July 6, 2018. Witnesses said they saw the man dash out of Superior ... more Photo: Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media Buy photo Photo: Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Man fleeing ICE agents near Danbury courthouse hit by car 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

DANBURY — Samuel Cruz-Coctecon didn’t expect to find immigration agents waiting for him at state Superior Court in Danbury, on Friday, where the 25-year-old was due to be sentenced on a domestic assault charge.

So he ran — straight into White Street traffic — and was knocked to the ground by an unmarked police car.

Cruz-Coctecon jumped up and tried to run again, but he was surrounded, handcuffed and strapped to a stretcher.

“I can’t believe that he even stood up,” said eyewitness John Frank, looking at the smashed windshield of the police car. “He must have had a lot of adrenaline running through his system.”

An ambulance took Cruz-Coctecon to Danbury Hospital, but his injuries were minor, police said.

It may seem like a dramatic way to start the work day in small city America, but incidents like this are becoming more common under President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, even if Danbury is two times zones away from the center of the debate on the southern border.

Last spring, for example, ICE agents arrested two men in separate incidents outside the same courthouse in downtown Danbury - a man accused of drugging and raping a 15-year-old girl, and another man accused of defying a federal judge’s order to leave the country in 2013.

Similar incidents have happened across the state in Norwich, Middletown and New London - the apparent result of a 2017 Trump executive order to hire 10,000 ICE agents and a policy to target immigrants in judicial proceedings by staking out courthouses.

In reaction to Friday’s arrest, longtime Republican Mayor Mark Boughton said agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acted appropriately.

“The individual was there at the courthouse for a reason, because there was pending legal action against him,” said Boughton, the GOP frontrunner for governor in November. “I have no problem with ICE going to court to pick someone up if their focus is on arresting people who have committed crimes.”

Cruz-Coctecon, who was due to be sentenced to two years’ probation, had previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of assault and disorderly conduct stemming from a home dispute in February, police said. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a felony charge of risk of injury to a minor.

“No one wants to see someone injured, but when you run away from federal agents, bad things happen,” Boughton said.

Boughton pledged last year that Danbury would work as a “force multiplier” with ICE agents. At the same time, outgoing Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was urging Connecticut police departments to defy Trump’s ICE initiative.

Danbury, a city of 85,000, has about 5,000 undocumented immigrants, Boughton estimates.

On Friday, Boughton said city police were not aware ICE agents were staking out the courthouse. City police are only responsible for investigating the accident with the police car, which was driven by a Brookfield officer who was dropping off paperwork at the courthouse, city police said.

A top civil rights advocate called Friday morning’s arrest “unconscionable and unacceptable” and accused ICE of “jeopardizing this man’s life” by chasing him into the street.

“Nobody should be in fear of being torn away from their home because they went to a Connecticut courthouse,” said Dan Barrett, legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut in Hartford. “Judges, lawyers, and anyone who values the rule of law in Connecticut and thinks the courts should be open to the people should be really worried about this.”

The ACLU and other civil rights groups have joined attorneys and judges in complaints about courthouse ICE arrests under Trump. Courthouse arrests happened under President Obama as well, but attorneys told the Associated Press in March that the pace appears to have picked up under Trump.

Susan Storey, Connecticut’s chief public defender, and other critics of the Trump policy warn that creating a climate of fear at the courthouse could backfire by keeping witnesses and victims from appearing at hearings.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342