The main administrator of the Capital City Public Schools in Iowa after a “targeted enforcement process” of the Moines, Iowa (AP) – the authorities arrested on Friday.
The superintendent of the Moines Public School, Ian Roberts, was arrested on Friday morning by US immigration and customs agents in possession of a charged pistol, cash and a hunting meter. The authorities said that he had tried to escape the arrest.
ICE official said Roberts was in an expired student visa in the United States and received a final distance from an immigration judge in May 2024. The agency said he had “existing weapons costs” from 2020, but it had not published any further details.
“This suspect was in the possession of a invited weapon in a vehicle that was made available by the Moines Public School to flee to the federal law enforcement authorities,” said Sam Olson, director of the field service from St. Paul Enforcement and. “This should be a wake -up call for our communities for the great work that our officials do every day to eliminate the threat from public security.”
The Ministry of Public Security in Iowa said on Friday that the agency received an inquiry to support federal agents “in the search for a person who fled a traffic stop initiated by their agents,” said speaker Tawny Kruse.
Republican governor Kim Reynolds was made aware of the situation this morning, spokesman Mason Mauro said in an explanation.
Court files in Pennsylvania show that in January 2022 Roberts became guilty for a diminutive violation due to illegal possession of a charged firearm in a vehicle, and was fined with a fine of $ 100 plus court costs. The case came from a quote in Erie County resulted in the previous month from a Pennsylvania Game Commission Officer, who stopped Roberts when he ended a day of deer hunting in state countries.
Roberts said at the time that he was a long -standing licensed hunter and gun owner and that he left his hunting rifle in the seat of his vehicle in the view to ensure that the official did not feel threatened during his interaction. He said he was shocked when the officer quoted him for it, but he owed himself guilty to avoid distraction. He wondered if his murky skin played a role in that case.
“I don’t seem to be the kind of man who would enjoy the deer season in Pennsylvania, in fact I have been on hunting for more than 20 years,” Roberts wrote in a social media contribution at the time.
US immigration and customs authorities show Roberts in a district prison in West -Iowa in their care. But Pottawattamie County’s prisoner employee said that he was not currently in prison. The prison in Council Bluffs is about 130 miles west of the Moines.
The 52 -year -old Roberts began his term as a superintendent of the Moines School, who looked after 30,000 students in July 2023. A biography for Roberts on the website of the district says that he was born by Guyana with a migration background and spent a vast part of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York.
The Coppin State University website offers an alumni profile from Roberts, which completed the school in Baltimore in 1998. In it, Roberts said that his father immigrated to the United States in the 1980s and his mother immigrated in the early 2000s.
In a joint explanation, the presidents of unions who represented teachers and other school workers in the moin and throughout the state shocked from Roberts’ imprisonment. They said he was an “enormous lawyer for students, families, employees and the community”.
“His leadership and compassion for all students, regardless of the background, identity or family origin, are a light camp in one of the most diverse school districts of the state,” says the President of the Iowa State Education Association, Joshua Brown and that of Moines Education Association, Anne Cross. “It is a dark and worrying time in our country. This incident has caused enormous fear of DMPS students, families and employees.”
It was the second time in two days that an aggressive ICE campaign shocked the local officials in Iowa. On Thursday, agents arrested in elementary clothing that refused to identify their belonging, a man who worked in a grocery store in downtown Iowa City
___
Associated Press Writer Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa, contributed to this report.
