Student captures video of first confirmed ICE stop in Lexington

by Maggie Scales, with permission from the Lexington Observer

A video taken by a Lexington High School student last week depicts three ICE officers trying to detain people in a white truck on Waltham Street in Lexington. The student’s mother witnessed two adult men being handcuffed and taken away in an unmarked vehicle. 

Adithya Naveen, a junior at Lexington High School, captured the video from a school bus at 8:03 a.m. on Sept. 8. About 10 students were on that bus and witnessed the incident.

“It’s just kind of crazy that it’s just happening here,” Naveen told the Observer. “I’ve seen it all over the place, and then, right outside my house, happening with so many cars, it was just crazy.”

The black SUV in the video has the same license plate as a vehicle reporters from the Waltham Times have seen at multiple ICE detainments over the past few weeks in Waltham, Isabella Lapriore, a reporter at the Waltham Times, told the Observer. 

Lexington Police Chief Mike McLean confirmed “this was an immigration enforcement related action” with the Department of Homeland Security in Boston. The incident did not originate in Lexington, McLean said. 

This is the first ICE action in Lexington that LexObserver has been able to confirm since the Trump administration launched its immigration crackdown. The Observer spoke with local police, who spoke with the Department of Homeland Security, and also checked with local immigrants’ rights advocates. None of them knew of any other incidents in Lexington.

“To the best of my knowledge, there have not been any ICE arrests in Lexington to this point,” McLean said. 

Naveen and his mother, Lakshmi Naveen, shared what they saw with the Observer. 

Adithya was walking out of his house to get onto the school bus in the morning when he saw two black cars, with red and blue lights flashing, cut off a white pickup truck, which brought it to a stop. He rushed onto the bus, where about 10 other students and the bus driver watched the incident, in shock, he said. 

“Everyone was just a little shocked. I was staring, the bus driver was staring, [the other students] were probably pretty shocked as well, same as me, and I guess a bit interested as well, trying to see what was happening,” Adithya recalled. 

After the school bus pulled away, Lakshmi continued to watch the incident unfold. More officers arrived at the scene, she said, for a total of about five unmarked cars and 10 officers. 

Lakshmi witnessed the officers trying to get the men inside the vehicle to open their windows, but they wouldn’t. The officers brought a “tool” over to the white car, which she speculated could have been used to break the window open, as has happened during ICE arrests in nearby communities this year. The men in the car opened at least one of their windows after seeing the tool.

Eventually, the men inside the truck willingly exited their vehicle. They were handcuffed and taken away by the ICE agents, Lakshmi said. A little while later, a tow truck came by to take the white truck away. 

“It was like a movie,” Lakshmi said. 

LexObserver asked the Department of Homeland Security if this incident resulted in an arrest but did not hear back in time for publication.