LA car wash owner sues for $50m after being slammed and detained in Ice raid

Source: The Guardian

The 79-year-old owner of a Los Angeles area car wash is seeking $50m in damages from the federal government after US immigration authorities allegedly slammed the US citizen to the ground and detained him for almost 12 hours.

Rafie Ollah Shouhed suffered significant injuries during an immigration raid this month, his attorney said, including broken ribs and a traumatic brain injury. The agents “violated the Constitution, California civil rights law, and basic human decency”, V James DeSimone, a civil rights attorney representing the man, said in a statement on Thursday.

“These masked agents’ conduct was lawless, reckless and cruel,” DeSimone said. “If this can happen in broad daylight to an American senior citizen who committed no crime, it can happen to anyone. This was not law enforcement, it was an assault on civil rights and our democracy cannot survive if federal agents operate above the law.”

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Late that morning, masked agents entered Shouhed’s car wash in Van Nuys – video appears to show one push the owner down as he entered the building. Shouhed went outside to “provide proof that his employees were authorized to work”, but the agents swore at him, pushed him and “violently body-slammed him onto the pavement”, his lawyer’s office said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/26/los-angeles-car-wash-owner-ice-raid-lawsuit