Maine reddit threads good for some Salt
>>24157266 pb
>Catch
>>24157541 pb
>First Catch of the Day
>Reeeeeeeeeeeeee
Go to Maine
r/Maine
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2h ago
themainemonitor
Masked agents detain civil engineer in Portland, leave his car running in the street with a smashed window
r/Maine - Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz’s car was still in the Top of the Old Port parking lot in Portland on Thursday morning after agents detained him and left the car running with a smashed window. Photos by Josh Keefe.
Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz’s car was still in the Top of the Old Port parking lot in Portland on Thursday morning after agents detained him and left the car running with a smashed window. Photos by Josh Keefe.
Masked agents in police vests detained Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia employed by an engineering consulting company, in Portland on Thursday morning. Carvajal-Munoz earned a master’s degree from the University of Maine, and colleagues said he was in the country on a work visa.
Agents left the car he was in, a grey Hyundai Tucson, running — with a smashed window — at the scene on Pearl Street in downtown Portland after taking Carvajal-Munoz just after 9 a.m., according to video from bystanders and an interview with a nearby parking attendant. A passerby then drove the vehicle into the parking lot, the attendant said.
The detention happened as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting what it is calling “Operation Catch of the Day,” an immigration enforcement effort across Maine, “targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have terrorized communities,” according to an ICE press release.
But Carvajal-Munoz has no criminal record, according to TLOxp, a background check system from TransUnion.
He is at least the third person detained in Maine whom news outlets have found does not have a criminal record. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and has not publicized a complete list of people it has detained. The agency said on Tuesday it had arrested 50 people in Maine, but the “Worst of the Worst” list it published contained only 13 names as of 12 p.m. on Thursday.
“In America, we don’t believe in secret arrests or secret police,” said Gov. Janet Mills during a Thursday press conference on ICE enforcement in Maine.
Agents pulled Carvajal-Munoz over by the Top of the Old Port parking lot between Cumberland and Congress streets, according to Greg Seligman, the parking lot attendant working at the time. Seligman said he didn’t see the interaction but saw the aftermath: Agents had smashed a car window and left the car running, he said.
Seligman said someone who witnessed the incident asked him if they could move the car into the parking lot. The car was still there around 10 a.m., and there was still glass on the road from where Carvajal-Munoz had been pulled over.
Seligman said Portland police responded to 911 calls after the detention but told him there was nothing local police could do as it was a federal operation. The Portland Police Department confirmed it received a report of a disturbance at 8:48 a.m. and that officers responded to check out the area.
Amanda Barnett, Carvajal-Munoz’s coworker at GEI Consultants in Portland, said Carvajal-Munoz is in Maine legally on a work visa. He has worked at the company for two-and-a-half years, according to another colleague, Ali Brady, who said they started on the same day in June 2023.
“I’m really scared for him,” Barnett said.
GEI Consultants is an engineering and environmental consulting firm with 62 locations across the U.S. and Canada, according to its website. Reached by phone, a company representative confirmed Carvajal-Munoz worked there but declined to comment on the detention while the company was gathering information.
An observer posted a video online of agents in police vests leading Carvajal-Munoz with his hands behind his back to a dark-colored car with flashing lights above the windshield. A second video showed the agents’ car driving away, leaving the car Carvajal-Munoz had been driving in the street.
https://themainemonitor.org/masked-agents-smash-window-detain-engineer-portland/