# Man Killed by Semi-Truck While Fleeing ICE Agents in Florida Marks Third Deadly Encounter in a Week
A 28-year-old man died Tuesday morning in St. Augustine, Florida, after he was struck by a tractor-trailer while running from federal immigration agents, authorities said, making him the third person to die in less than a week following contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The fatal incident unfolded before 7 a.m. at a gas station along State Road 16, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. ,The 28-year-old was among four occupants of a vehicle that stopped in the parking lot of the gas station and convenience store in St. Augustine, and during an encounter with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Homeland Security Investigations, the four fled on foot, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi.,
Florida Highway Patrol Sergeant Dylan Bryan detailed the sequence of events in a statement to media outlets. ,According to the agency, an encounter between HSI and ICE agents occurred in the parking lot of a local gas station and convenience store, during which the four occupants of the vehicle fled on foot. One of them ran across State Road 16 and into the path of the tractor trailer, sustaining fatal injuries on scene.,
First responders arrived quickly but could not save the man. ,First responders pronounced him dead at the scene, with the crash first logged on FHP’s traffic incident map around 6:42 a.m., Florida Highway Patrol has since confirmed it was not directly involved in the immigration encounter itself but is now leading the investigation into the deadly crash, according to reporting from Scripps News.
As of Tuesday, officials had not released the identity of the man who was killed. ,Details about the victim, including his name, nationality and immigration status, were not immediately available., Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security had responded to requests for comment from The Associated Press by the time initial reports were published.
**Part of a Troubling Pattern**
The St. Augustine death is not an isolated case. ,It was the third death in about a week involving encounters with ICE agents, following shootings in Texas and Maine.,
Just days earlier, a fatal shooting rocked a Houston-area community. ,Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was fatally wounded during a traffic stop involving ICE in Houston, and like the later shooting in Maine, he was not the person ICE was trying to find.,
Then, on Monday, a Colombian national living in Maine was killed under similar circumstances. ,Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man living in Maine, was fatally shot by ICE agents during a traffic stop, and Maine Sen. Angus King said Guerrero was not the target of an immigration operation.,
The string of deaths — two shootings and now a fatal collision — has intensified scrutiny of how ICE and its partner agencies carry out street-level enforcement operations, particularly traffic stops and unplanned encounters that quickly escalate.
**Federal Response**
In the wake of the mounting death toll, federal officials moved swiftly to adjust enforcement protocols. ,The Trump administration ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pause most traffic stops on Tuesday., Additional guidance reportedly narrows how and when agents can pull over vehicles going forward. ,The new guidance applies to ICE agents under Enforcement and Removal Operations, who oversee the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants, and directs agents to work with partner agencies to conduct a stop only if carrying out a criminal warrant on an individual in a vehicle, according to CNN.,
The pause signals growing concern within the administration over the risks posed by aggressive field tactics, especially as bystanders and unintended targets have been swept up in fatal outcomes in three separate states within the same week.
**What Comes Next**
The Florida Highway Patrol’s investigation into Tuesday’s crash remains ongoing, and it is unclear whether charges or additional findings will follow. Questions also remain about the identities and immigration status of the other three individuals who fled the St. Augustine gas station, as well as what specific enforcement action ICE and Homeland Security Investigations agents were attempting to carry out at the time.
As federal agencies review their protocols nationwide, families in Texas, Maine and Florida are left mourning loved ones lost during encounters that, in two of the three cases, did not even involve the individuals agents were originally seeking. The pause on ICE traffic stops may offer a temporary reprieve, but for communities touched by these three deaths in a single week, the human cost of enforcement operations has already been made painfully clear.
Dallas Headlines will continue to follow developments in this story as federal officials release further details and as investigations in Texas, Maine and Florida move forward.