Police in El Paso, Texas, have issued arrest warrants for 16 people who took part in a vandalism incident at the U.S. Border Patrol Museum in February, a museum official has confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Police records indicate 15 of the 16 protesters are not residents of Texas and would have had to travel to attend the Feb. 16 event. The charges range from criminal trespass to criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage. The suspects have been asked to surrender to El Paso police.
Museum director David Ham told the Washington Examiner the museum was overtaken by masked protesters on a Saturday in mid-February by members of a group called Tornillo: the Occupation.
About 50 people entered the facility, defaced property, and refused to leave the grounds.
“Say it loud, say it clear, Border Patrol kills!” group members standing inside and outside the facility yelled, according to a video the group posted on Facebook.
The group’s Facebook page said its goal was “exposing the true violence of borders and border patrol” following the deaths of two Guatemalan children after being taken into custody by federal agents near the U.S.-Mexico border in separate incidents in December.
“They proceeded to set up a bunch of signs and just went all over the museum. They of course had an agenda, they were chanting and singing songs, and then a couple of them got on a bullhorn,” Ham said. “We had visitors in the museum. They started talking and kind of harassing them. Of course the staff was asking them to leave, and they wouldn’t leave.”
Protesters glued 110 images on pictures, glass, painted walls, mannequins, and vehicles throughout the building. They also posted the pictures on the faces of Border Patrol agents who died in the line of duty.
The museum was closed 10 business days as a professional remediation company cleaned the museum and investigators documented evidence.
Ham, a former Border Patrol agent himself, vowed to go after the protesters who defaced the museum. In a Facebook post Sunday, he said “efforts to prosecute them will be pursued once damage is assessed.”
One of the protest organizers, Elizabeth Vega, was previously involved in demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. Another protester is Therese Okoumou, who climbed the Statue of Liberty as a protest against President Trump’s immigration policies on Jan. 5, 2018. She was not arrested.
Vega told El Paso television station KVIA that the museum protest “was an act of civil disobedience done because we believe there is a humanitarian crisis and human rights violations being perpetuated by a corrupt and broken immigration system.”
She denied vandalism accusations but admitted the group did plaster sticky pictures of Caal and other children on various items inside the Border Patrol museum.
The list of arrest warrants includes:
- Tiffany Deveze, 30, of El Paso, for criminal trespass.
- Keith Rose, 29, of Godfrey, Illinois for criminal trespass.
- Nicolas A. Cruz, 23, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Amber M. Duvall, 31, of Freeburg Missouri, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Elizabeth Lynne Vega, 52, of St. Louis, Missouri, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Lisa Elain Winter, 50, of St. Louis, Missour, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Alessandra Jo Ogren, 46, of Penasco, New Mexico, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Serena Bethany Rascon, 30, of Ojo Sarco, New Mexico, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Amanda Lyn Ingram Tello, 29, of Villa Ridge, Missouri, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Michael S. Ruch, 34, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Monica Ninette Chan, 23, of Sacramento, California, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Szuhan Ho, 37, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Noa Desimona, 43, of Brooklyn, New York, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Anna Rowe, 28, of Hattiesburg, Missouri, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Allessandra Carolina Mondolfi, 49, of Miami, Florida, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
- Hazel Batrez Chavez, 24, of North Hollywood, California, for criminal mischief resulting in $2,500 to $30,000 in damage.
