A top Los Angeles restaurateur has been detained by ICE after a former employee revealed he had a stashed gun despite his parole terms.
Federal officers were seen on video arresting Carlos Lool, from the popular La Granja Rotisserie and Fuego Rotisserie, while he was picking up supplies over the weekend.
His girlfriend Jenna Lawrence can be heard yelling at the agents to give her his wallet. She claimed they forcefully detained him and drew their guns.
“They yanked him out of the car. They had him on the floor. They yanked me back and pulled out their guns and then they took him,” she told ABC7, calling it a “sad and humiliating” experience.
Lool had a decades-old criminal conviction from Connecticut, and it’s unclear whether he was residing in the country illegally after coming to the US from Guatemala.
The 1997 conviction was for third-degree assault, a Class A misdemeanor. The next year, he was convicted of second-degree assault, a felony.
He also has multiple DUI and failure to appear offenses on his record.
Lawrence claimed ICE caught wind of Lool when a former employee reported the restaurant to authorities claiming there was a gun inside the business, which violates his parole terms.
Lawrence claimed the gun was needed for protection. “We’re in a tough neighborhood. We have been robbed. We constantly have people breaking windows and jumping over the fence,” she said.
She continued: “He’s been in this country. His kids are here. It’s just a lot and it’s very overwhelming… and he doesn’t have his clothes, no cell phone, no computer – and we own businesses.
“We’re just getting deeper and deeper in a hole because he’s being deported.” The California Post reached out to ICE for comment.
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