by David Mendez

A handful of federal immigration agents surrounded a man along a residential street in Shoreline Tuesday afternoon, saying that they had gotten into a “fender bender” — one in which agents apparently rear-ended a driver as he was moving through a four-way stop on his way to work.

It’s unclear if any of the half-dozen or so people who stopped along the street to keep an eye the encounter saw the crash itself. But many that The Osprey spoke to — including the driver — think that the agents intentionally struck the man’s car as a pretext for performing a stop that afternoon.

Around 1:50 p.m., residents in the area of 167th Street and Ashworth Avenue spotted a man quietly standing against a white car, surrounded by men identifying themselves as federal agents. The driver of the white car was visibly a person of color, and appeared to be in his early 20s at oldest.

“I was coming up this hill and I just saw all these cars. I told my son, who is not white, to run home and get [my husband] and I just started recording,” said Alex, a neighbor who was driving by the scene when she saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounding the man.

The agents — almost all of whom wore face coverings — told witnesses that the stop took place following a “fender bender,” though they didn’t clarify when asked for more information by bystanders. At least one agent had a patch reading ERO, which stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations, a unit within ICE responsible for carrying out immigration arrests in the field.

When asked, an ICE agent said that the driver of the white car wasn’t being detained — which appeared to be at odds with the fact that the driver was surrounded by armed officers.

When asked why they were wearing face coverings, agents claimed that they had experienced death threats. When informed that state law prohibits law enforcement officers from covering their faces, one agent responded only with “we’ve got federal law, federal law.”

And when asked to identify themselves, the agents claimed to be “police” and “ICE.”

“That’s all you need to know. That’s all you get,” one agent said.

By 2:05 p.m., as a crowd grew to watch the interaction between agents and the man they had surrounded, ICE agents decided to leave the scene.

After agents drove off, the driver — who declined to be identified — told The Osprey that he was on his way to work when his car was struck from behind. He was stopped at the intersection of 167th and Ashworth; as began driving through the intersection, the ICE SUV apparently struck his right rear quarter panel.

He pulled over after finishing the turn and was getting ready to talk to the other driver when he saw agents getting out of the SUV.

“I saw the vests that said ‘ICE’ and I said ‘oh, shit,’” he told witnesses.

Photos of the scene show white paint on the left side of the ICE vehicle’s front bumper, and black paint on the man’s car.

When asked if he thought agents hit his car as a pretext for making a stop, the driver said “that’s what I’ve been thinking.”

A woman at the scene called 911 just before 2 p.m. to inform Shoreline police of the incident; it is unclear if police ever arrived to speak with witnesses.

Before agents packed into their cars, The Osprey overheard one agent making a call, stating that they were going to clear the scene citing “six agitators” — apparently referring to witnesses taking photo and video.

Requests for comment to Shoreline Police leadership — including whether or not SPD had been contact by, or on behalf of, federal agents — were not immediately returned.

Under the second Trump administration, immigration agents have become infamous for aggressive tactics in their efforts to meet the White House’s demands for mass, widespread deportation. Last month, agents sped through a Shoreline neighborhood in a car chase attempting to detain a suspect, though they gave up on their target as neighbors confronted them with cameras.

Multiple people across the country have been killed in ICE-initiated car chases, leading to a brief period in which agents were ordered to stop chases. (That order was quickly rescinded by the White House.)

While federal agents are not permitted to stop cars for traffic violations — which are the purview of state and local law enforcement — many accounts (including a handful published in a Congressional investigation) indicate that ICE agents have used crashes as a pretext for making arrests.

At least half a dozen neighbors arrived at the scene to witness the stop — some trickling out from their homes, others driving to the scene after seeing alerts on social media.

“I got up in their faces. I asked them why they were covered up, when it’s state and city law. I asked for their badge numbers. They said they didn’t have to,” Alex, the woman who was among the first on the scene, told The Osprey. “Then they said, ‘Why are you shaking?’ Like, ‘what have you done wrong?’ and I said, I’ve just never seen evil up front.”

Alex said that she wanted to be out there to protect the driver and “make sure they didn’t grab him.” Her neighborhood, she added, has immigrant families and she wanted to make sure that everyone she knows is safe.

“I’m so glad we stuck around for that kid,” she later told The Osprey.