DHS officials say Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras are Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens and are believed to be members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua.
Moncada allegedly entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was arrested. However, the Biden Administration released him despite his record. At the time of the incident, he had a final order of removal.
Zambrano-Contreras was the passenger in the car and allegedly entered the U.S. illegally in 2023. She was also released during the Biden Administration. She allegedly “played an active role in a Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” and was previously accused of involvement in a shooting in Portland.
The ICE officers said that they wounded the two after they tried to run over officers. They were later found by the Portland Police Bureau and taken to a hospital.
DHS called the description of the two injured as a married couple “REVOLTING LIES,” declaring that “the two criminal illegal aliens who attacked Border Patrol in Portland are a gang member and his prostitute, NOT an innocent ‘married couple.’”
The shooting immediately triggered protests given the prior shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Press and politicians pounced on the story as an example of excessive force.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek held a press conference to express outrage over ICE being in the city. It did not seem to matter that the suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates were accused of trying to kill officers. Wilson declared that you simply cannot believe what ICE says in such incidents.
Kotek denounced the shooting as “instigated by the reckless agenda of the Trump administration.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., rushed out a comment on X, stating that “I’m monitoring the first awful reports of two people shot in Portland by federal law enforcement. I’ll keep you updated, but Trump’s deployment of federal agents in my hometown is clearly inflaming violence–and must end.”
In his press conference, Chief Day admitted that the Portland Police Department hesitated to disclose the suspected gang connection because it did not want to be accused of “historic injustice of victim blaming” by law enforcement.
Day then began to cry as he attempted to speak to the Hispanic community, declaring that “it saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks because I understand or at least have attempted to understand your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”
Day’s admission seemed to be brushed aside by the media. There was little concern that a police chief admitted to withholding information that would have supported ICE and contradicted misleading accounts fueling the protests.
The fear of contributing to, or being accused of, the “historic injustice of victim blaming” should not be the basis for withholding clearly material information from the public as protests erupted around the city. Whatever the investigation will show on this shooting, the public should have been informed about what was known about the status and relevant record of the two individuals.
The advantage of fueling rage politics is that the facts can become immaterial. It did not appear to matter that these suspects were criminal aliens who may have been trying to kill ICE officers. Even admitting those facts seems too much for the Chief of Police in having to apologize to the community. To quote Chief Day, “It saddens me.”