Federal Law Enforcement and Use of Force

The article reports that on the morning of Jan. 21, 2026, Department of Homeland Security officers in unincorporated Compton, California tried to arrest William Eduardo Moran Carballo, a Salvadoran national whom DHS labels a 'violent criminal illegal alien' tied to human smuggling and with two prior arrests for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant, and a 2019 final removal order from an immigration judge. According to DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, Carballo allegedly 'weaponized his vehicle and rammed law enforcement' in an effort to escape, prompting a federal agent to fire what DHS calls 'defensive shots'; Carballo was not hit, fled on foot and was then apprehended, while a CBP officer was injured but the suspect was not. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department says deputies were called only to provide outside perimeter traffic control and were not directly involved in the confrontation, underscoring that this was a DHS‑run operation. DHS frames the incident as part of a broader surge in 'dangerous attempts to evade arrest,' claiming a 3,200% rise in vehicle attacks on officers and blaming 'sanctuary politicians,' including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for encouraging people to evade ICE and providing guides on how to recognize and block agents; those are political assertions that are not independently corroborated in this piece. The case will feed into the wider national fight over Trump‑era interior immigration crackdowns, the accuracy of DHS’s assault statistics, and the risks these operations pose to agents, bystanders and suspects in dense urban areas.