Midtown Times, NY – A Los Angeles car wash owner is pursuing a $50 million federal claim after alleging he was violently thrown to the ground and detained by immigration agents during a workplace raid earlier this month. Surveillance video shows federal agents taking the 79-year-old to the ground
Rafie Ollah Shouhed, 79, asserts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents entered his Van Nuys business on September 9. According to the tort claim filed by his legal team, Shouhed sustained broken ribs, elbow injuries, and a traumatic brain injury after agents slammed him onto the pavement and held him down.
Surveillance footage reportedly shows one agent restraining another man in the parking lot before Shouhed approached. When he tried to intervene and present documents verifying his employees’ work authorization, the claim states that agents cursed at him, body-slammed him, and pinned him down, one allegedly placing a knee on his neck.
“They ripped me down, three people were sitting on my back,” Shouhed told reporters at a press conference. “I was begging them. I have a heart condition.”
The claim further alleges that even after officials confirmed Shouhed’s U.S. citizenship, he was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center for nearly 12 hours without medical care. His attorney, V. James DeSimone, called the incident “an outrageous and unlawful assault on a 79-year-old American citizen in his own place of business.”
The filing accuses the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies of assault, battery, civil rights violations, and deliberate indifference to medical needs, while also arguing that these agencies uphold policies permitting excessive force.
Following the incident, Shouhed temporarily shut down his car wash, saying that employees—including U.S. citizens- were too fearful to return. Federal officials have not yet commented on the pending claim.
By the Midtown Times Staff, this story was initially reported by ABC News.
