On Monday, Nov. 10, a student was arrested after hitting another student while driving erratically with a vehicle equipped with red and blue lights and sirens in Parking Structure 1. The arrested student allegedly shouted “ICE raid” in a potential attempt to imitate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
In a statement, Sacramento State Chief of Police Chet Madison Jr. said that, at approximately 10:45 a.m., the Police Department responded to a report of a person driving a white Ford Explorer erratically with lights and sirens while yelling “ICE raid” in Parking Structure 1.
The driver of the Ford Explorer, Omar Imad Maadarani, is a 19-year-old Sac State student. Maadarani was arrested and booked at the Sacramento County Main Jail for assault with a deadly weapon while operating a motor vehicle and impersonating a police officer.
The victim, a Sac State student, was struck by the vehicle. The student denied a statement out of concern for their safety.
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The police statement said officers successfully stopped the vehicle and detained the driver. It also said that further investigation revealed that Maadarani’s Ford Explorer, an auctioned, decommissioned public safety vehicle, had collided with a student. The statement said neither the driver nor the victim sustained injuries.
Miles Mendoza, a senior political science major, said he was very disappointed that the Sac State Police Department issued no alerts due to the violent nature of the crime. Mendoza said the students deserve to know if this was a masking protocol by ICE that will put the campus community in danger by allowing someone to pose as them.
“If a student was having a violent mental health episode in which multiple students were put in danger in a university common space, we also deserve to know,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said students should not need to worry about university leadership failing to be transparent about public safety.
“The school administration is already facing strong accusations of obfuscation regarding administrative policies,” Mendoza said. “Now the threat to the immigrant community, documented and undocumented alike, is growing every day.”
Saul Orozco, a sophomore engineering major, said what happened was risky and dangerous for all of the students involved.
“How that person was allowed to impersonate a police officer for that long is unacceptable,” Orozco said. “If I saw a car with police lights, driving recklessly, then I would have made sure that I was safe.”
Orozco said he hopes anyone posing as ICE agents or police officers gets reprimanded to the fullest extent.
Community members with information regarding this investigation are asked to contact the Sacramento State Police Department at 916-278-6000 or [email protected].
