It gives a better understanding of what actually happened than what was reported in the News-Times as the reporters for El Canillta were able to talk to relatives of the people who were arrested. Remember, this is a computer-generated English translation so to a certain extent, you have to make out what's being said (although it's translated to English, the grammar seems to stay in Spanish).
In the end, you'll definately get a clearer understanding of what these people went through and how our local and federal authorities operated in regards to the sweep.
Here's an eyewitness account in the article from someone who was on the scene (I'll have someone who can speak better Spanish than me translate this better later. Again, what's important is that you get the main point).
Jose Andrade has been Ecuadorian, been 29 years old and takes living for 6 in Danbury, was there when the facts happened. This is what commented for the Canillita:
“I arrived as to 7:15 a.m.y were parking my bicycle by the side of the Main Street, when I watched a gray van that parked in the corner of Main and Kennedy, to a flank of Kennedy Park. Then all the workers who meet there ran to be contracted and I knew that a man took to three of them to work. Like a the 15 minutes, the same van returned to the place and then I ran to request work, but other workers ran first who I. An American man raised four workers in the seats of the vehicle and fifth he did it in the back part, by suggestion of the conductor. I could see between means of the Van that were work helmets, and vests of security like which they are used in construction. I asked to him the conductor who took me to be able to work, and to inclusively I said him that he remembered to me, that already had worked with him previously, although really never before it had seen it, but is a strategy that has worked to me in other occasions. The man saw me been strange, and he said me that he would ask his head, and if he needed more workers, he would return by me. I listened that the man said to them to the workers who would be taken to work in the construction of close in some place near Main Street, near the library”.
After the previous thing, Jose Andrade was contracted for a work of ceilings and He went of the place around 7:50 a.m. was witness of two occasions in which the van took to the workers, but suspects that there was a third trip before he arrived, because a friend his appeared in the list of arrests and he neither did not see it in first groups or or the time in which Andrade hoped until being contracted.
“I feel that now I cannot trust anybody, I do not know if I am suddenly going to enter a restaurant and the person who takes care of to me will be a migration person and she arrests to me”, comments Jose Andrade. “The police had warned to us previously that we would not have to put in certain zones of Kennedy Park to us but we are in favor there of the necessity to work. In addition, i myself I have worked for police doing workings of gardening in its own houses”.
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On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
The amended complaint states that plaintiffs sought to remedy the continued discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against the Latino residents of the City of Danbury by Danbury's mayor and its police department.
Plaintiffs allege that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the Connecticut Constitution because defendants conducted the arrests without valid warrants, in the absence of exigent circumstances, and without probable cause to believe that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activity. In addition, plaintiffs allege that defendants improperly stopped, detained, investigated, searched and arrested plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also allege that defendants violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights when they intentionally targeted plaintiffs, and arrested and detained them on the basis of their race, ethnicity and perceived national origin. Plaintiffs raise First Amendment, Due Process and tort claims.
Plaintiffs request declaratory relief, damages and attorneys fees.
On September 26, 2007, ten plaintiffs filed suit in response to an arrest of aday laborers at a public park in Danbury, Connecticut. Plaintiffs amended their complaint on November 26, 2007.
