The officers were more than well known in that community; according to residents and federal authorities, they were feared. They stopped and detained people, particularly immigrants, without reason, federal prosecutors said, sometimes slapping, hitting or kicking them when they were handcuffed, and once smashing a man’s head into a wall. They followed and arrested residents, including a local priest, who tried to document their behavior.
They rooted through stores looking for damning security videotapes of how they had treated some of their targets, described by one of them on a police radio as having “drifted to this country on rafts made of chicken wings.”
