Man fleeing federal raid fatally struck on freeway

Southern California's immigrant rights community is expressing grief and outrage over the death Thursday of a man hit and killed on the 210 Freeway as he tried to flee Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia.

- BY NATHAN SOLIS, JENNY JARVIE, KAREN GARCIA, JASMINE MENDEZ AND CLARA HARTER

A MEMORIAL IS placed on a 210 Freeway offramp near a Home Depot that U.S. agents raided Thursday.

"It just breaks my heart because it's just so inhumane," said Robert Chao Romero, a UCLA professor of Chicano studies and Monrovia resident. "These horrible, unjust ICE policies led to someone dying."

The man was identified as Carlos Roberto Montoya, a Guatemalan national, per the Guatemalan vice consul in Los Angeles.

His death at a hospital was confirmed Thursday afternoon by Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik. The circumstances surrounding the fatal accident are under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.

Monrovia police received reports at 9:43 a.m. of immigration agents approaching the Home Depot, according to Feik, who said an officer saw possible Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the site.

In an emailed statement to The Times, the Department of Homeland Security said that "the individual was not being pursued by any DHS law enforcement" and that the agency was not aware of his death on the freeway until hours after operations in the area had concluded.

Video footage viewed by The Times showed masked men in tactical gear detaining day laborers at the home improvement store parking lot and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. The masked agents did not stay on the scene after the day laborer was struck by the vehicle on the freeway, according to a witness who spoke to The Times anonymously for fear of retaliation from his employer.

A day laborer who asked that his name not be used, citing safety concerns, said he goes to the Monrovia Home Depot every day around 8 a.m. in search of work. Thursday morning started like any other, he said, until he heard people start to yell, "La migra, ("Immigration, corre." run!") He took out his phone and started to record.

Although he avoided detention, he said, he "felt powerless" that he couldn't help his friends.