The guardian
Academics and colleagues are rallying around a California university professor who was arrested and charged with assaulting a federal officer during a chaotic immigration raid at a cannabis farm that resulted in a worker’s death.
John Caravello, a math and philosophy professor at California State University Channel Islands, joined a crowd of protesters who confronted immigration agents when they arrived at Glass House cannabis farm in Camarillo, a community about 50 miles north of Los Angeles.
He was among hundreds of people who were arrested at the Glass House facilities in Camarillo and nearby Carpinteria. Those swept up in the raids include protesters such as Caravello, approximately 360 farm workers, and a US military veteran who worked as a security guard. The sweeping operation has since attracted widespread scrutiny, particularly after the death of a farm worker who fell from a greenhouse roof while attempting to hide from agents. The action is thought to be the largest raid in terms of arrests and the first death linked to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in California.
Caravello, who volunteered as an organizer and immigrant advocate alongside his teaching work, is accused of throwing a teargas canister at law enforcement agents and “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” officers, according to an affidavit. But witnesses on the scene tell a different story.
Genevieve Flores-Haro, associate director of Oxnard-based Micop (Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project), knows Caravello and was among the demonstrators present when he was arrested. On Thursday morning, Flores-Haro said the phones of her team of immigrant rights activists began blowing up with reports from family and friends that agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) were at Glass House farms.
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