North Valley chief says ICE ride-along went beyond what he expected, department reevaluating agreement

By Robert Stevens

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Messenger had an hour-long interview Wednesday, Oct. 7 with North Valley Police Chief Steve Gray. The interview provided substantial additional detail about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the county last Wednesday, Sept. 30. Those details were not available when we posted the first article on our website Thursday, Oct.1 about 6 p.m. or when we sent our newspaper to press Tuesday, Oct. 6 at midnight.

The following article presents the new information along with information from the two previous articles. In some cases, the chief’s information modifies what we reported previously. We stand by our previous reporting being substantially accurate and the most accurate information available at the time of publication.

MORONI—North Valley Police Chief Steve Gray says the Sept. 30 operation that resulted in five people being taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody began as what he understood would be a training ride-along but developed in ways he did not anticipate and included tactics that conflicted with North Valley Police Department policies and values.

Gray’s account, provided in a department statement and an extensive interview with the Sanpete Messenger, adds significant detail to what happened that night. It confirms that North Valley officers conducted the traffic stops, ICE agents rode with local officers, five people were detained and North Valley officers transported the detainees to the North Valley Police Department office in Mt. Pleasant, where ICE took them into custody.

Gray confirmed that some traffic stops occurred near Moroni’s turkey-processing plant, but he said the majority of Moroni stops were on Main Street and Duck Springs Road. Other stops occurred in Fountain Green and Mt. Pleasant.

The chief supported an ICE statement that neither the plant nor any other business was targeted. The Messenger does not know how many of the five detainees were arrested in the turkey plant area.

That new information provides a clearer official account of the operation but does not invalidate previous accounts from workers, relatives and other residents. Those sources described enforcement activity around the turkey plant as employees left work, including stops in the plant parking lot and along the main road between the plant and S.R. 132.

Ride-along becomes enforcement operation

Gray explained that the North Valley Police Department entered into a memorandum of understanding with ICE under the federal 287(g) program about two months before the Sept. 30 operation.

Before that agreement, Gray said North Valley’s usual involvement in immigration matters came after an officer arrested someone for an alleged state crime. Officers booked the person into the Sanpete County Jail. If ICE had “detainer” (a warrant for detention of an undocumented person), ICE was informed and an ICE officer could come to the county and pick up the person.

Gray said ICE approached North Valley about the new agreement after federal agents came to North Valley Justice Court intending to detain two people who ultimately did not appear.

ICE representatives discussed federal funding, equipment, programs and training that could become available to the department through the arrangement. The training would enable the local officers to perform some of the same functions as ICE agents.

Gray said he initially understood the agreement as an administrative change rather than an expansion of what his officers would do.

“This is going to be business as usual,” Gray said he told officers going through the training.

Gray said he expected officers to continue arresting people for non-immigration crimes, with the principal difference being that North Valley might contact ICE directly about a possible detainer instead of waiting for that process to play out at the jail.

“We’re not going to be checking immigration papers,” Gray said he told officers. “That’s not our job.”

North Valley has 11 officers, Gray said. At the time of the ride-along, five had completed ICE online training. Four more were taking the training or were eligible.

After some North Valley officers completed the training, Gray said ICE contacted him and asked to send some of their officers to the county to do some ride-alongs with program-eligible North Valley officers so the officers could see how ICE programs and systems worked.

At about 6 p.m. on Sept. 30, four federal officers arrived in Mt. Pleasant. Three North Valley officers were working patrol. Gray was doing administrative work in his office at the police station.

Gray said he instructed the patrol officers to continue normal duties, answer calls from the public and make traffic stops as they normally would.

That’s what they did, the chief said. During the stops, North Valley officers talked with drivers about driving infractions and asked for driver’s licenses. ICE personnel riding in the same vehicles had access to federal information and databases. If ICE agents identified someone they wanted to speak with, Gray said, they approached the person, identified themselves as ICE officers and took over the immigration portion of the encounter.

Gray said he didn’t know, nor did his officers know, whether the federal agents acted because of immigration status, an immigration warrant, another federal warrant or information in a federal database.

North Valley officers issued traffic citations or warnings during some stops, Gray said. But he didn’t have details on how many were issued, what they were for, or where they were issued.

Five taken to police department

The people detained by ICE were transported by North Valley officers to the police department. Because the police station doesn’t have a holding facility, Gray ended up supervising the detainees in his office while the ride-alongs continued.

In all, the ICE agents rode with North Valley officers for about five hours. Gray estimated the operation ended between 11 and 11:30 p.m., when ICE officers loaded the detainees in SUV’s they had left in the police department parking lot and drove away.

Gray said North Valley does not know the names of all five people, why ICE detained each person or where the detainees were taken.

Where the stops happened

Gray’s account provides additional detail about the geographic scope of the ICE operation. The chief said most of the Moroni traffic stops occurred along Main Street and Duck Springs Road, although some were made near the turkey plant. It is unclear how many of the five detainees were taken into custody near the plant.

He acknowledged that the concentration of activity could have appeared different to residents or plant employees watching from nearby. The Messenger’s earlier reporting was based on firsthand accounts from people who had been at or near the plant that evening.

One turkey plant employee, who asked not to be identified because of fear of retaliation, reported seeing an unmarked black truck near a stopped vehicle on the plant road. The worker later reported seeing North Valley and unmarked vehicles around the plant road and parking area.

A second employee said activity increased as the night shift at the plant ended. “We finished working at 9 p.m. and after that people started getting pulled over heavily,” the worker said.

Another woman told the Messenger her husband had been stopped shortly after leaving the plant parking lot and that she watched part of the encounter through FaceTime. She said the person conducting the stop (assumedly a North Valley officer) returned her husband’s (assumedly driver’s license, registration, etc.) before someone identifying himself as an ICE officer told her husband he was being detained.

The Messenger also received multiple pieces of video footage from that night, including footage recorded by a turkey plant worker from the roof of the facility while the worker hid there to avoid detection.

Chief raises concerns about ICE tactics

Perhaps the most significant new development came after the operation.

Gray said he spoke with the three North Valley officers who had participated in the ride-alongs. They raised questions about ICE tactics.

“…My officers came out and said the tactics were not how North Valley would conduct similar police work,” Gray told the Messenger. “They run under a different set of rules than we do.”

The chief said some of the standards governing federal agents conflict with North Valley’s policies. “We can’t do what they’re doing…because it doesn’t meet our policy,” he said, adding that aside from policy, aspects of the ICE approach don’t fit the values of the North Valley department.

Department backs away from 287(g) arrangement

Gray said the Sept. 30 experience changed his view of North Valley’s agreement with ICE.

Although the 287(g) agreement can provide participating local agencies with certain immigration-enforcement authority after required training and approval, Gray said North Valley does not currently have the federal programming, databases or other capabilities required to independently conduct the type of ICE detention activity seen Sept. 30.

He also said the department does not intend to use the agreement to have officers routinely check immigration status or detain people over immigration issues.

“Our job is not to check immigration papers and detain people,” Gray said. “That is not our job.”

Even if the agreement eventually gave North Valley that authority, Gray said, “we’re not going to exercise that authority.”

In a written statement posted on the police department Facebook page, Gray was similarly direct: “Our officers cannot detain any individual for an immigration issue and honestly we are not going to.”

Gray said North Valley has received no federal money through the agreement and will not apply for any. The department also has not completed paperwork that would have allowed it to receive federal funds or other program benefits.

“We’re not filling them out anymore,” Gray said in the interview. “We’re done.”

That does not mean the agreement has formally ended. Gray said the North Valley Police Board retains authority over the matter. But he has discussed his feelings about the agreement and believes the board will support his recommendation to end it.

He said he does not believe any potential federal funding, equipment or training is worth the damage to trust between officers and the communities that could arise from his officers getting involved in immigration enforcement.

Community fallout

The effects of the Sept. 30 operation extended beyond the five people detained. North Sanpete School District Superintendent O’Dee Hansen told the Salt Lake Tribune that about 80 of roughly 400 students at North Sanpete Middle School were absent Oct. 1. Moroni Elementary School recorded 56 absences.

Hansen said one student reported that a parent was among the five people taken into ICE custody. He described the effect on some students as “trauma.”

For Victoria Corona of Ephraim, the concern extended beyond families directly affected by the detentions. Corona was born in Mexico but said she was brought to the United States at age 10. Her husband, Antonio, was born in Nephi, and they have four school-age sons.

Corona said she has applied for permanent residence based on her marriage to a U.S. citizen and is awaiting her final immigration interview, at which she expects to receive her green card.

“It’s just been chaos,” Corona said. “Even if you’re here legally, if you’re of color, they go against you. My 8-year-old said, ‘Are they going to take you?’”

Another son, a freshman at Manti High School, plays soccer. Corona said he was the only Hispanic player among eight on the team who attended a game that Friday.

Her account does not establish why the other players were absent, but it reflects concerns that families and school officials reported following the operation.

Residents who contacted the Messenger immediately after the detentions described people staying home, missing work and searching federal detention systems for relatives.

Gray says that reaction deeply concerns him. “I was very heart broken and concerned about the fear that the people felt,” Gray wrote in the department’s statement. He said he felt for residents who were afraid to send children to school or go to work and said, “I promise you I never wanted that to happen.”

Assistance, rumors and protest

Community members responded by organizing assistance for people who were afraid to leave their homes.

An announcement from Pueblo Chico Market in Ephraim offered free home delivery of store orders. Residents also offered to pick up children, buy groceries, run errands and connect families with legal resources.

Much of the organizing took place through community Facebook groups, where members also attempted to distinguish firsthand reports from rumors.

That distinction proved important Oct. 1 when a large group of law enforcement vehicles gathered along 100 North in Ephraim, prompting online reports that ICE was raiding C.O. Building Systems.

The vehicles were actually from multiple law enforcement agencies. They had been parked by officers participating in crisis-intervention training at the Central Utah Counseling Center down the road.

Other social media posts have alleged immigration-related activity in the Gunnison area. The Messenger has not confirmed that report. Any persons taken into custody in the Gunnison Valley are not included among the five Sept. 30 detentions.

A small protest also took place outside the North Valley Police Department and Mt. Pleasant City Hall on Saturday, Oct. 3. Signs included messages such as “Keep families together!” One protester told the Messenger that most passing motorists were friendly or waved, while several made obscene gestures.

Gray said he temporarily shut down the department’s Facebook page because of the number and tone of comments, messages and texts coming from people on different sides of the issue.

“Some of the comments on both sides of the issue are uncalled for,” he wrote, saying the page was intended to provide public information, not host racist or vulgar remarks.

Elected officials respond

In response to questions from the Messenger, U.S. Sen. John Curtis said his office was seeking additional information. “I have great respect for the hardworking people of Moroni,” he wrote, “and my office is working to obtain further information from officials familiar with the matter. I’ve long maintained that the rule of law and compassion are not mutually exclusive, and that the law must be enforced fairly and with dignity.”

Jonny Larsen, the Democratic candidate for Congress in Utah’s 4th Congressional District, which includes Sanpete County, criticized the current national approach to immigration enforcement.

“I think it’s a disgrace,” Larsen said. “I came from a time period when it was something we were very proud of, that immigrants made America great.”

Larsen said earlier presidential administrations also deported large numbers of people but did so humanely and constitutionally. He also said immigration enforcement can affect communities economically when immigrant workers make up part of the labor force.

The future

Despite the additional details, major questions remain unanswered.

Gray said ICE operates under federal authority and may conduct activity in the area without informing North Valley. Such operations have occurred in the past, he said.

Gray acknowledged that repairing trust with the community may take time. Gray said officers will continue responding to people who need help regardless of race, religion or immigration status, and said the department will continue school visits and other community involvement.