Video shows ICE arrest of father outside child's Beaverton daycare

kgw.com · By Jamie Parfitt

A representative for Mahdi Khanbabazadeh's family released dashcam and cellphone video showing parts of the chiropractor's encounter with unidentified agents. BEAVERTON, Ore. — Video segments provided by a representative for the family of an Iranian-born chiropractor show federal agents shattering the window of his car before arresting him outside of his child's Beaverton daycare last week. The edited video comes from a dashcam in the vehicle of the 38-year-old chiropractic doctor Mahdi Khanbabazadeh, as well as cell phone video from a witness to the arrest, each showing parts of the encounter. Khanbabazadeh's arrest happened on Tuesday morning last week, in the parking lot of Guidepost Montessori. But the dashcam video begins during an apparent traffic stop, with Khanbabazadeh pulled over on the side of the road. His child is strapped into a car seat behind him. Multiple agents wearing ballistic vests begin walking around the chiropractor's vehicle, and Khanbabazadeh greets them cordially — though he asks why he needs to roll his window down for them. They insist that he do so, without explanation or identification. "I have a baby in the car," Khanbabazadeh says, gesturing behind him. "That's okay, that's okay," the agent taking point says. "We're not doing anything with the baby. Just roll your window all the way down." "Daddy, police!" the child says excitedly. "Yeah, that's police!" Khanbabazadeh replies, rolling his windows down and handing over his license and registration. When asked where he's going, Khanbabazadeh says "daycare." "Where's daycare?" another agent asks. "How far?" "Just to Beaverton ... five minutes," Khanbabazadeh says. The dashcam shows the time as nearly 8:18 a.m. The video then skips ahead to 8:32 a.m. Khanbabazadeh is now stopped in the daycare parking lot, his child still in the backseat. "So, there is a baby in the car," Khanbabazadeh is in the middle of explaining. "Is it hard to wait for three minutes?" The chiropractor then sits in the car for a few moments, exchanging some words with his child. "Mommy's coming, yeah," he says. The dashcam video jumps ahead to almost 8:43 a.m. Khanbabazadeh is still in the driver seat, but his child is gone from the car seat in the back. One of the agents is smashing his driver-side window as Khanbabazadeh protests. "I'm getting out! I'm getting out," he says, opening his door slowly. "Well, you should have done it already," an agent says, pulling his mask back up to cover the lower half of his face. "I told you three times, unbuckle your seatbelt and step out of the car," another agent, his face uncovered, says as he gestures Khanbabazadeh out of the car. The dashcam video ends. The witness cellphone video picks up what seems to be a short time later, showing agents holding Khanbabazadeh up against his car and patting him down. There are at least five, three of them with their faces covered, the only uniforms their ballistic vests printed with "POLICE" and a badge that is unidentifiable in the video. "Because I'm Iranian," Khanbabazadeh is saying to the woman holding the cellphone, "I'm Iranian, that's why they are doing this ... I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor. I'm an Iranian." The woman taking the video replies that she understands. "This is not OK," she says to the agents. "And no one here will identify themselves to me. They came into ... you are not OK! This is not OK, and no one will identify themselves." The agents walk Khanbabazadeh away from his car and down the street before the video ends. U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement released a statement last week acknowledging that they had arrested Khanbabazadeh. They said that officers first tried to arrest the man during a traffic stop, but he'd requested to drop his child off at daycare. "Officers allowed him to proceed to the daycare parking lot where he stopped cooperating, resisted arrest and refused to exit his vehicle, resulting in ICE officers making entry by breaking one of the windows to complete the arrest," the agency said, in part. They added that Khanbabazadeh's child was unharmed. ICE claimed that Khanbabazadeh had entered the country legally, but had overstayed the terms of his visa. Khanbabazadeh's wife told KGW that this was not the case, and she was working to get him released. At the time, ICE said that Khanbabazadeh was being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. When KGW reached out on Tuesday, an ICE spokesman said there were no updates on Khanbabazadeh's case. KGW's Celine Stevens contributed reporting to this story. To stream KGW on your phone, you need the KGW app. Download the KGW app