FDLE breaks – Florida law enforcement arrested a legal Stuart resident, Ernesto Puac Son, after agents broke a van window, dragged him through broken glass, and used force as he said he feared being taken for deportation. The case has drawn scrutiny over how the Florida Dep
For nearly a year, Ernesto Puac Son’s story has been a question of timing, paperwork, and who had the authority to touch him.
On Oct. 1, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement moved in on Puac’s Stuart home looking for his brother, Felipe. Video shows an FDLE agent smashed Puac’s van window. dragged him through broken glass. and pinned him face down on the ground as he wailed and bled from gashes. Officers then ordered Puac out and wrestled with him as he resisted—actions Puac later said he believed were an ICE-style kidnapping. not a routine police stop.
The arrest ended with Puac going to the Martin County Jail for a year and receiving a conviction for resisting arrest with violence on Jan. 7. But the moment that stays with him, in his own words from jail on May 29, isn’t the confrontation—it’s the fear that followed once the door was opened.
Puac said he thought he was about to lose everything. “I thought they were going to send me to Guatemala and I would lose everything,” he said in Spanish. “My business, all my customers, everything.”
The case has turned into a flashpoint over Florida law enforcement partnering with ICE under the federal 287(g) program—and over what happens when officers use immigration as a lens for routine policing.
FDLE suspected Puac was here illegally, despite asylum and work permit
FDLE records show Puac, 33, was suspected of living in the country illegally. Yet court records show he has a work permit and a pending asylum case.
The arrest began before dawn on Puac’s way to work about 6:20 a.m. FDLE reports show he did not come to a complete stop at a sign near his house and that an agent later suspected him during what quickly became a forced extraction.
Puac showed an FDLE agent a valid Florida driver’s license. He refused to roll down his window or get out of his van. Video shows he began recording his own video with his phone and laid on his horn for 1½ minutes until an agent dragged him out.
As officers sat him up on the ground, Puac told them he had never done anything wrong and that he had worked 20 years as a roofer and 10 years to pay off his house. He later told TCPalm he was scared and signaling for help.
He also said he was confused when two sheriff’s deputies arrived to assist what he thought was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. In the video, Puac can be heard calling out, “Sheriff, why are you working with him?. Why?” He said, “You have no sheriff now,” as FDLE Special Agent John Soltys responded.
In the confrontation that followed, Puac locked his arms in the steering wheel while Soltys wrestled him. Soltys warned, “Let go or you’re going to break your arm,” and Puac bit Soltys’ arm and hit his face, according to FDLE reports. The reports also say Soltys cut his forearms on the glass.
But the force that pushed the stop into a public fight is also complicated by what’s visible. Those actions aren’t visible in Puac’s video nor in the body-cam video released to TCPalm by the Sheriff’s Office. which redacted much of the audio and video. The Sheriff’s Office said it did so for medical privacy and to protect undercover agents.
FDLE did not respond to questions about the core decisions that escalated the arrest—why agents ordered Puac out of the van after a “rolling stop,” why officers forcibly removed him, whether that aligns with agency policy, and whether alternatives existed.
From the jail calls: “I was in shock and began to panic”
Puac’s fear comes through in his later account from jail on May 29, when he described how his brother’s arrest set the tone for his decision to keep the door closed.
Felipe had a deportation order but no criminal history, court records show. FDLE surveilled the Puac home for nine days to find Felipe. Agents waited in unmarked cars outside Puac’s house and arrested Felipe when he left for work—at the same time as Puac. Felipe later told TCPalm in January from Guatemala, where he’d been deported, that he saw everything.
“It was an abuse of power. They broke his window and pulled him out on the ground like he was the worst criminal,” Felipe said.
Puac told TCPalm he was afraid to get out of the van after watching agents place Felipe in an unmarked vehicle.
“I saw everything,” Puac said. “I was in shock and began to panic. I thought they were immigration, not police. If I knew they were police, I would have opened the door.”
As paramedics tended to Puac’s wounds, one asked what happened and another questioned him about his behavior. Puac said, “They did this to me. I’m going to sue you all.”
The story doesn’t end with the confrontation. The Sheriff’s Office report, according to the account, was almost entirely censored—except for listing the victim as “society.”
A broader shift under 287(g) has law enforcement using immigration status as leverage
FDLE agents were acting as deputized immigration agents under the federal 287(g) program. That program allows state and local law enforcement to stop, search, and question people based on immigration status.
Puac’s arrest reflects what policing researchers describe as a tactical shift that followed the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign last year. In that environment. more legal residents and people without criminal convictions are being detained and arrested. even as the president and Florida governor insist they target only criminals and gang members.
The use of force also appears more aggressive in the details tied to the case. Internal ICE memos obtained by Politico, a global nonpartisan investigative news organization, describe a pattern that includes breaking windows.
In Puac’s case, Florida law allows officers to search vehicles with probable cause but without a judicial warrant. The law does not specify when officers can break vehicle windows and forcibly remove someone.
In the video, a deputy asks FDLE, “Do you guys, like, break windows for this stuff?. What’s your protocol on that?” If FDLE answered, the account says it is not audible on the video. The reports say FDLE called ICE and asked for an administrative warrant. Immigration officers, not judges, issue those warrants, and the same agency that requests them also approves them.
Soltys warned Puac he would break the window after repeated orders over nearly 3 minutes. In the video, Soltys told Puac, “Sir, I’ve been very patient with you.” The agent said, “You want to call your wife or somebody to get the vehicle? If you comply with us now, we’ll help you.”
Critics say the fear isn’t irrational—researchers describe how it can shape behavior during police encounters
Thomas Kennedy, a researcher with the immigrant-rights nonprofit Florida Immigrant Coalition, called the case evidence of racial profiling.
“This just goes to show you how racial profiling works,” Kennedy said. “Officers are like, ‘Well, he looks Hispanic, so we can take him to jail, put him on a detainer and violate his Fourth Amendment rights.’ ”
The Fourth Amendment protects everyone, regardless of legal status, from unreasonable government search and seizure.
Policing researchers and psychologists also point to how fear can change decisions before anyone even has a chance to explain paperwork or intent. Cynthia Najdowski. head of the Department of Psychology at the University at Albany in New York. said Black and Hispanic people can experience greater fear and behave differently during law enforcement encounters compared with White people.
Najdowski described “stereotype threat,” which she said can raise anxiety and strain cognition, impairing thinking, perception, and decision-making.
“We shouldn’t expect everyone to react the same,” Najdowski said. “If you think you’re going to be dragged into a van and carried away to a detention center and potentially deported to an unknown country — that’s a lot to weigh on an individual’s decision to open the door.”
A separate example of force in immigration arrests underscores the stakes for people with limited visibility into what’s happening
Puac’s case isn’t the only instance tied to arrests under immigration authority that end in charges involving resistance.
One example cited in the reporting involved a legal Stuart resident whom the Florida Highway Patrol tased in October. The Spanish-speaking woman didn’t comply with an English-speaking trooper’s order to place her hands behind her back while she watched her family detained for immigration violations. They charged her with resisting arrest.
In Puac’s case, the road from a “rolling stop” to a smashed window and gashes appears to hinge on the interaction between immigration enforcement and local policing—especially when people believed the agents were ICE.
Where the case stands now
Puac is serving time after being convicted of resisting arrest with violence on Jan. 7, and he is scheduled to remain in the Martin County Jail for a year.
His case sits at the intersection of immigration policy and day-to-day law enforcement. The FDLE arrest in Stuart demonstrates how the partnership under 287(g) can transform a roadside decision into a collision between immigration enforcement authority and a person who says he believed he was about to be deported—despite having a work permit and a pending asylum case.
The questions now turn on specifics: why agents forcibly removed Puac after a “rolling stop,” how often windows are broken in similar operations, what internal policies allow it, and whether alternatives were available before force was used.
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