WASHINGTON — Kristal Rios Esquivel’s troubles with the federal government began when she walked through a door marked “staff only” and set off an alarm at the National Zoo’s Bird House last Wednesday.
She was arrested by zoo police for unlawful entry and handcuffed. In an altercation with the cops, she spat at two officers and kicked one, “making physical contact with his leg,” a criminal complaint alleges.
Rios Esquivel, who has been ordered to undergo drug counseling as a condition of release, now faces up to eight years in prison if found guilty of a federal crime.
The felony charge of “assaulting,” “resisting” or “impeding” a federal agent in the course of their duties has become a popular one during President Donald Trump’s takeover of policing in Washington, D.C., which began Aug. 11. The government has filed such cases against at least 17 people over the past two and a half weeks, according to a review of D.C. court records.
In Rios Esquivel’s case, it was normal for federal police officers to be patrolling the zoo. But other cases stemmed from what appeared to be routine arrest scuffles with local cops — they only became federal cases due to agents from the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies being enlisted in city policing as part of Trump’s crackdown. Under the statute, defendants can face up to 20 years in prison under enhanced penalties.
Defense attorneys say in several cases the charges of assaulting a federal officer appear overblown and excessively punitive. They believe prosecutors, under the lead of Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s U.S. attorney for D.C., are bringing the cases to make crime in D.C. seem more severe than it is — and to make Trump’s policing takeover appear more effective.
“I think they’re horseshit,” Rios Esquivel’s attorney, Heather Shaner, said of the cases generally. “They just want to have big numbers and to say they’re doing an amazing job. Too bad for the people of the District of Columbia.”
Shaner described Rios Esquivel’s walk through the restricted door as “a mistake” and said the spitting was a reaction to “being touched and grabbed” by the police.
For some, what may have been a typical disorderly conduct charge has escalated into a federal assault case, thanks to the phalanx of federal agents who’ve joined D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department on ordinary neighborhood patrols.
MPD officers were joined by agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and DHS on Aug. 19 when they allegedly caught Mark Thomas Bigelow with an open container of alcohol in a parked van in Northeast D.C. Bigelow struggled with the cops as he was put in a squad car, according to the complaint. He allegedly kicked an FBI special agent in the hand and another in the leg.
He now faces two charges of assaulting or impeding a federal agent.
“They just want to have big numbers and to say they’re doing an amazing job. Too bad for the people of the District of Columbia.”
- Heather Shaner, defense attorney
The same day, MPD officers headed to an area of Southeast D.C., with agents from the FBI, the DEA, the DHS and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in tow, to investigate a report of possible fireworks or gunfire. As the cops were dispersing a crowd, Terrance Wilson allegedly “struck” an officer with his elbow, according to a criminal complaint.
After Wilson was put in a police cruiser, an acquaintance identified as Donisha Butler tried to retrieve a sweatshirt from him. An officer was pulling Butler away from the car when Butler allegedly “struck” him in the face with her hand. Both Wilson and Butler now face felony charges.
The charging document, which included a signed statement by an FBI agent, does not state whether the contact appeared intentional or accidental.
Both the officers who were allegedly hit by Wilson and Butler are local cops, not federal agents, which raises the question of whether federal jurisdiction should even apply. Although Wilson and Butler could have been charged under local D.C. law for assaulting police, the government is arguing that the MPD officers were deployed “for federal purposes” under Trump’s crime emergency ― and therefore Wilson and Butler committed a federal crime.
Attorneys for Wilson and Butler declined to comment on the facts of the case at this stage.
Christian Enrique Carias Torres, a Venezuela-born food delivery driver, was chased and tackled by masked federal agents after he left a Northwest D.C. cafe with an order Aug. 16. Videos of the encounter, including one filmed by a Washington Post reporter, infuriated D.C. residents who’ve opposed Trump’s policing takeover.
Carias Torres is now facing a charge of assaulting or impeding a federal agent stemming from the arrest.
As he sat in court for a hearing on Monday, a judge ordered that Carias Torres be released from the D.C. jail but acknowledged that “in reality,” Carias Torres would almost certainly be picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents before getting out, since the DHS has an active removal order for him.
The judge, Zia M. Faruqui, seemed deeply troubled by the case, particularly the anonymous nature of the arrest.
“It appears masked men came and arrested you,” Faruqui said. “It’s disturbing. These pictures do not reflect to me what I believe the United States of America to be.”
Eugene Ohm, a public defender representing Carias Torres, told HuffPost the felony charge against his client was part of a broader “smear” campaign meant to demonize decent people during the federal crackdown.
“Masked and anonymous law enforcement are terrorizing innocent and hardworking residents of the District and then claiming assault — all in an attempt to smear good people and build upon their false narrative that they are capturing ‘bad criminals,’” Ohm said in an email. “But the citizens of the District understand their roles in the criminal justice system and have proven they will not be fooled.”
Indeed, the public has shown a heavy dose of skepticism toward these assault narratives so far. In two high-profile cases, grand juries have declined to deliver the indictments necessary for prosecutors to move forward with felony charges. The cases have been a major embarrassment for the U.S. attorney’s office since, as the saying goes, the bar is so low that prosecutors could indict a ham sandwich.
“Masked and anonymous law enforcement are terrorizing innocent and hardworking residents of the District and then claiming assault — all in an attempt to smear good people.”
- Eugene Ohm, public defender
On Wednesday, a grand jury passed on indicting Sean Charles Dunn for allegedly assaulting a Customs and Border Protection officer by throwing a sandwich at him. Dunn, a former Justice Department employee, became something of a local resistance folk hero.
Prosecutors also failed not once but three times to secure an indictment against Sydney Lori Reid, a local woman who had been filming immigration agents in public during an inmate swap in July. Prosecutors claim Reid, who’d been shoved against a wall, “forcefully pushed” an FBI agent during the encounter.
Defense attorneys argue Pirro’s office has been overreaching in other criminal cases as well, not just those involving alleged assaults on federal agents.
On Monday, Faruqui dismissed gun charges against Torez Riley, a D.C. man who had his bag searched by police after entering a Trader Joe’s grocery store earlier this month. Faruqui described the search as so blatantly illegal that a high school student would know it violated the Fourth Amendment.
“Lawlessness cannot come from the government,” Faruqui said in a remarkable rebuke.
On Wednesday, Maryland resident Edwin Jonathan Rodriguez appeared in court on charges that include possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime or drug trafficking. When police pulled him over Aug. 19, Rodriguez acknowledged he had a gun in the car that was registered under a Maryland concealed-carry permit, according to the complaint. He also had a 17-ounce bag of marijuana.
His attorney, Joseph A. Scrofano, described Rodriguez in court as a recent college graduate with no criminal record who was facing excessive charges. Scrofano said he has handled plenty of cases involving concealed-carry permit holders from other states who bring a gun into D.C. The cases typically wind up in Superior Court, where local criminal matters are handled, and often end with a plea deal on misdemeanor charges, he said.
“I think this is a PR case, regardless of the severity of the charge,” Scrofano told the judge.
The prosecutor asked that Rodriguez continue to be held in the D.C. jail, but a judge ordered he be freed under conditions that include a curfew as his case moves forward. Rodriguez had more than 20 supporters in the courtroom, including his priest, and some of them wept at news of his release.
After her arrest at the zoo, Rios Esquivel spent five days in the D.C. jail before she was ordered released on Monday. But according to her attorney Shaner, an administrative error led to Rios Esquivel spending an extra day beyond the judge’s order. Rios Esquivel wasn’t released because there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest in the same case she was being held for.
Rios Esquivel ended up getting out of jail Tuesday after a withering order from the judge, Faruqui, who wrote that there is “no adequate remedy for false imprisonment.”
According to Shaner, the extended jail stay only added to what she described as the absurdity of the case.
“The whole thing is kind of silly,” she said. “I can’t imagine in any other situation would they have arrested someone for attempted unlawful entry at the zoo.”