“It’s disturbing, it’s heartbreaking, it’s reprehensible not only in our community but anywhere in America,” said LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. A disabled 15-year-old teen was detained at gunpoint on Monday in front of a high school by federal agents, says the LAUSD. This confrontation occurred in front of Arleta High School, where both the boy, who attended San Fernando High School, and his grandmother were present, along with another relative who was registering for classes at the school. As this took place, federal agents approached the duo with firearms drawn. Surveillance footage has been taken of this taking place. The school’s principal managed to call the school’s police, who were able to release him. The principal also stated how the federal immigration agents threw bullets on the ground, which were then collected by the school police.
District police reached out to the agencies that had been there to ask them to return and collect the bullets left behind, Carvalho said, but were told that they could keep the rounds and use them for target practice.
The boy was mistaken for someone else they were looking for in the area, and was then released from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The agents were supposed to be looking for an adult man in the vicinity. Individuals have often speculated whether agents are specifically targeting Arleta High School. A Customs and Border Protection representative told Newsweek, “Allegations that Border Patrol targeted Arleta High School are FALSE. Agents were conducting a targeted operation on ‘criminal illegal alien” Cristian Alexander Vasquez-Alvarenga—a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta.”
The family of the disabled teen has spoken out about this recent event. “He breaks down, and he tells me he feels harassed. He tells me he doesn’t feel safe,” said the disabled teen’s mother.
The teen, Baldemar Gutierrez, has significant disabilities that affect his hearing as well as speech. “They handcuffed me and kept asking me who this person is, and I was like, ‘I don’t know who that is,’” Baldemar recalled.
The agents showed the picture to the mother, who had told the agents that it was not her son. The teen kept repeating his name, saying that he was a United States citizen, to the agents.
When the agents realized their mistake, they uncuffed the boy and explained how this experience would be worthwhile for him. They admitted that they had confused him with someone else and replied to the mother, “Look at the bright side: You’re going to have an exciting story to tell your friends when you go back to school.” The mother replied, “What’s exciting about having guns pointed at you?”
Currently, the Los Angeles district is offering safe passage to children and staff, as well as online classes, for students who don’t feel safe and secure coming to school. Schools in the Bay Area, such as San Jose, are preparing for any possible ICE presence in the area.
As the 2025-2026 school year begins, Carvalho said bus routes will be adjusted, update policies, deploy staff and volunteers, and form a task force led by the former School Police Chief Steven Zimmerman to comfort and reassure students and their families slightly. “As a father, as a teacher, principal, superintendent, alongside these honorable leaders in our community, I think we all agree that in our community, there are no sidewalks for immigrants and separate sidewalks for everybody else,” Carvalho said. “Everybody walks the same journey to school, and everybody walks then back home.”
In an Instagram post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was confronted by a question related to the mistaken identity mishandling of the high school student. Leavitt was quickly dismissive of the interviewer, asking where he got the information from. The reporter was quick to say the acquired information was from the LA Times, to which the Secretary responded with, “Okay, I’ll have to look into the veracity of that report. I read the LA Times almost every single day, and they are notorious for misleading the public, and I’m sure there’s more to that story than the way that you’ve characterized it.”
In the caption of the post, the creator commented: “The same LA Times owned by the billionaire who helped Trump get elected by killing an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris and then hired Scott Jennings.” What other things could there be more of than the way the reporter had described the unfortunate situation? And if she does read the LA Times almost every single day, how could she miss such an impactful event on the United States and Deportation?
