22 arrested in Brockton immigration sting
Officials say some linked to violence
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Milton J. Valencia
Globe Staff / June 14, 2008
BROCKTON - Local and federal law enforcement officers arrested 22 people on immigration charges in a two-day sting operation this week, using federal laws to apprehend some of the biggest players in the violence that has rocked Brockton in recent months. If the sting had been carried out earlier, they said, the city's seventh homicide victim of the year might have been among them.
more stories like thisAmong the list of suspected gang members, affiliates, and seasoned criminals identified as targets in the planning stages of the sting was Bensney Toussaint, a 26-year-old Haitian immigrant who was gunned down Sunday night. The shooting, at a graduation party on Turner Street, remains under investigation, police said, calling Toussaint a victim of the same violence they had been working to prevent.

"Had we gotten to him a little sooner, he'd be alive," Police Chief William Conlon said Thursday.

The sting was part of Operation Community Shield, a partnership between local and state authorities and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement that was launched three years ago with a roundup of MS-13 gang members from El Salvador linked to crimes in Greater Boston.

Federal agents bring immigration charges against foreign-born residents with histories of crimes that could warrant their deportation. Of the 22 arrested in the Brockton sting this week, 16 were permanent US residents whose criminal convictions could make them eligible for deportation under federal law; five were in the country illegally; and one was wanted on a deportation warrant. At least 11 were known gang members or affiliates, police said.

Police would not identify the 22 people by name, saying they must still be charged in a federal immigration court. But they said they have histories of severe crimes that range from assault to racketeering, and to other gun and drug crimes.

"These are pretty much the worst of the worst," said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the ICE's office of investigations in Boston.

Police believe the type of street violence that has rocked Brockton recently is perpetrated by the same core group of people.

Toussaint had a history of crimes dating back to 1999, including assault and drug convictions. But his family doesn't believe he should have been on the list of sting targets.

While his sister, Edwine-Toussaint Jeanty, acknowledges he had a history of crime, she said he did not resort to the type of violence that police described.

Their parents brought the family here 21 years ago, when Toussaint was just 5, to escape such violence in Haiti, she said. But now, her parents wonder whether they made the right choice and perhaps he would have been saved by being deported, she said.

"It would have been better for him to be back in Haiti, than not here at all," she said.

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.




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