Sept. 26, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) identified Job Arias-Mendoza of El Salvador as the man that their agency arrested in Hyattsville Sept. 24.
ICE Public Affairs said in an emailed statement that Arias-Mendoza had “previously been arrested for first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, concealing a dangerous weapon, and resisting arrest,” and that he “illegally entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time.”
ICE also stated that Arias-Mendoza was found to have knives and drugs in his possession after his arrest.
On Sept. 6, two weeks prior to his arrest, Arias-Mendoza had published a video of ICE handcuffing a man in front of a West Hyattsville drive-through liquor store to his social media accounts. The video has more than 200,000 views on TikTok. On Facebook, he accompanied the video with the message, in Spanish, “This happened this morning by the Aldi in West Hyattsville near the drive through. Be careful and God bless everybody.”
Photos and videos in Aria-Mendoza’s social media accounts show him in the West Hyattsville area as far back as 2020, outside the Queenstown Apartments and in local parks. One video shows him working construction.
Maryland court records show that an officer with the Hyattsville Police Department (HPD) arrested Arias-Mendoza at the end of March 2024. Records show the warrant was recalled on April 30, and Arias-Mendoza’s case was transferred to a Maryland Circuit Court. In an initial search, the Life & Times did not find Circuit Court records relating to Arias-Mendoza, or any other Maryland criminal record related to him.
The Life & Times has reached out to the HPD for more information about the 2024 arrest and charges.
The ICE detainee locator system shows Arias-Mendoza in ICE custody, but does not give his location.