Federal immigration agents detained a man in Cypress Park on Tuesday whose toddler was strapped into the back seat of his vehicle, according to video shared with The Times. After two agents climbed into his car — along with their weapons — they drove off with the child as onlookers protested.
The 32-year-old man who was detained during the enforcement operation at a Home Depot was a U.S. citizen, according to an immigration lawyer who spoke with his family.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Times on Tuesday night that the man allegedly “exited his vehicle wielding a hammer and threw rocks at law enforcement while he had a child in his car.”
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“He was arrested for assault and during his arrest a pistol was found in his car, that is reported stolen out of the state of New York,” the statement read. “The individual has an active warrant for property damage.”
The man, identified as Dennis Quinonez, has since been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person previously convicted of a domestic violence, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Border Patrol agents had been conducting a “targeted immigration enforcement operation” at Home Depot, which led to the arrests of five undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala, according to the unidentified spokesperson. Homeland Security said their criminal histories included DUI, driving without a license, and prior removal from the country.
The incident was among several immigration enforcement operations in L.A. County, activists said, after agents were seen early Tuesday amassing outside of Dodger Stadium.
In Cypress Park, the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network — a coalition of more than 50 organizations and groups and over 1,500 volunteers — said a member of their group recorded the masked agents detaining the father before agents got in the car and drove off with the toddler. In the video, people could be seen confronting agents as they tried to drive away with the child.
The toddler has since been reunited with her family.
Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, confirmed that the man in the video was the father of the child. She said the firm had reached out to the family thinking that the father would be in immigration custody but then learned that he and his toddler were both U.S. citizens.
She said the toddler, who turns 2 in January, is safe, although “the family is obviously traumatized by the incident.”
Toczylowski said the family received a call from federal immigration authorities and were told to pick up the child at the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.
“The fact that they were getting into that car, heavily armed, with masks on their face, they put that toddler in extreme danger,” she said. “It should shock everyone’s conscience that we have masked armed men behaving like that with a U.S. citizen father and a toddler who were just going to run an errand at Home Depot on a random Tuesday.”
Maria Avalos, the child’s grandmother, said her son was “not an angel” but that she didn’t think he would throw rocks at anyone, “especially with his daughter in the back.” She said she believed the warrant was for graffiti.
Regardless, Avalos said, the agents “shouldn’t have driven off” with her granddaughter. She learned of the child being taken around 10 a.m. and later watched video of the incident.
“When they got into the car, taking my granddaughter, I said, ‘Why are they taking her, are they really ICE, are they kidnapping her or what?’” Avalos said. “It was really horrible.”
Avalos said that when she went to pick up her granddaughter a female agent was with the toddler, playing with her.
“We hugged her, we kept her close to us and she was doing good, she fell asleep,” Avalos said. “She was just confused.”
Soon after the incident, still images of the father and vehicle were shared on social media in an attempt to identify the man and locate the family of the child.
“Nobody knew the name of the man getting picked up,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, whose group is part of the coalition.
She said the man detained should have been allowed to call someone to pick up the child.
Details of what occurred at the Home Depot and the subsequent arrest of Quinonez were laid out in an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint. In it, agents said Quinonez was allegedly wielding a hammer in a “threatening manner” as he yelled at the agents carrying out an enforcement operation at the home improvement store.
As the agents were preparing to leave in their vehicle, they noticed Quinonez put away the hammer in the trunk of his SUV. Moments later, the agents saw Quinonez allegedly throwing two objects resembling rocks at their vehicle, according to the complaint.
It was at that point that federal agents moved in with their cars to prevent Quinonez from leaving, prompting him to exit and yell at the agents that his daughter was inside the SUV.
As a crowd began to gather, federal agents decided to relocate Quinonez and his daughter to another location so as to keep them together. But as an agent was about to place Quinonez on the passenger side of his SUV, he allegedly noticed a handgun wrapped in a blue bandana.
Soon after, the agents decided to drive Quinonez and his daughter separately to another location, where agents determined that the handgun was loaded with five rounds of ammunition, according to the complain.
Federal authorities claim in the affidavit that Quinonez told them he thew the rock because he believe they were ICE and that the handgun belong to a friend. The affidavit said Quinonez should not have had the gun, which was previously reported stolen out of New York, because of a prior conviction related to a 2014 domestic violence case in Los Angeles County.
Quinonez family declined to speak on the allegations he faced during a news conference on the same day that criminal charges were filed.
Tuesday’s raid at the Cypress Park Home Depot included an adjacent resource center for day laborers. Maegan Ortiz, executive director of Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California, said their centers across L.A. County had been raided 14 times before, but this was the first time that agents had entered a center.
She said agents took the chain off the gate of the day laborer center, went inside and threw the site coordinator, a U.S. citizen, on the ground and detained him. She said the coordinator’s wrist was fractured. He was later released an treated at a hospital for the injury, she said.
Immigrant rights groups said the roving enforcement operation in Cypress Park was just one of several that were carried out across Los Angeles County on Tuesday.
Salas said people were pulled off roofs in Glendale and Burbank as well as at bus stops. She said at least one CHIRLA member was detained at a bus stop while their two daughters were at school.
“It was a crazy day,” she said. “It’s just awful and it started with this arrest and it continued during the entire day.”
Salas speculated that the operations were spurred by California’s special election on Proposition 50. The ballot measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts was crafted by the state’s Democrats in response to President Trump urging Texas and other GOP-majority states to modify their congressional maps to favor Republicans, a move designed to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“They wanted to create chaos,” Salas said. “The collateral damage are our people.”
In a video posted to X, Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of trying to suppress the vote in any way he could and referenced Border Patrol showing up at a kickoff rally for Prop. 50 “to intimidate.”
“He has folks dressed up in tactical gear, ICE and Border Patrol, hundred plus officers in LA as I speak, to intimidate and chill free expression, free speech, to intimidate voters,” he said. “He does not believe in fair and free elections. What more evidence do we need of the importance of proposition 50.”
In a written statement, the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network denounced the presence of armed federal agents in the city as Angelenos were exercising their civic duty to vote.
“The presence of masked federal agents is meant to cause chaos, threaten our entire community, and ultimately suppress our right to vote,” the statement said.
The activists also denounced agents for staging in a parking lot outside Dodger Stadium in the morning, a day after the team returned home to celebrate its back-to-back championships with thousands of Angelenos.
Videos shared with The Times and on TikTok show agents in unmarked vehicles wearing green vests and equipped with white zip ties in parking lot 13, which is just outside stadium property next to the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center that is used by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Eyewitnesses told The Times they estimated there were 100 agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, along with a special tactical unit with CBP. The agents left shortly before 10 a.m.
It was unclear what direction they went, but the staging area was two miles from the Home Depot where the man and his toddler were taken.
Frank McCourt, former owner and chairman of the Dodgers and the stadium, is part owner of the parking lots surrounding the stadium. A spokesperson for McCourt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson with the Dodgers also could not immediately be reached for comment.
The staging of federal immigration agents comes just a day after thousands of Angelenos gathered at the stadium to celebrate the Dodgers’ ninth World Series championship following their victory parade through downtown L.A.
It is also sure to reignite controversy for the team. Five months ago, protests erupted outside the stadium gates after federal immigration agents attempted to enter the main parking lot but were denied entry and forced to relocate to a road that leads to parking lot K. There, agents set up a staging area that was used as a processing site for people who had been arrested in a nearby immigration raid.
It was there that a U.S. citizen said he was detained for hours and heard agents bragging about the number of people they were detaining.
Video from that day showed demonstrators standing outside gate E, which leads to parking lot K, as masked agents stood next to unmarked vehicles.
The operation sparked public outcry and prompted more than 50 community and religious leaders from around Los Angeles to sign a petition calling on the Dodgers to take a public stance against the raids.
At the time, the Dodgers said they had nothing to do with the operation and announced that they would pledge $1 million to assist families of immigrants affected by the raids. The team said it would plan for other initiatives, as well.
“What’s happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected,” team president Stan Kasten said in a statement at the time. “We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.”
Times staff writers Clara Harter and Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.