U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a handful of people near a Pasadena shopping center, including two men at an adjacent bus stop Wednesday morning, according to video, local leaders, witness accounts and immigration advocates.

The early morning immigration raid — part of a massive federal operation blanketing Southern California and the nation, prompting fear across an array of neighborhoods — prompted Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, and Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo to travel to a detention area in the basement of the downtown Los Angeles Edward R. Roybal Federal Building.

There, in a darkened entryway flanked by a crowd of community advocates and people who know detainees, they demanded to see six people who they said were detained in the city and to make sure their due process rights were ensured. After repeated attempts, the officials were turned away without connecting with those detained, though Gordo — acting as an attorney — was able later to enter to help a Pomona woman get vital medication to her husband, a gardener who had been detained earlier in the day in a different raid, in La Mirada.

“Due process underpins our Constitutional in the United States of America and in California,” Gordo said. “And to pluck someone off the street without affording them due process is as unacceptable as it is unconstitutional. To have federal agents come into our city and not notify our police department, draw their weapons for taking a picture and do so without identifying themselves as law enforcement in an unmarked vehicle and out of uniform creates a dangerous situation.”

What happened

Video taken from inside Winchell’s Donut House near Orange Grove Boulevard and Los Robles Avenue showed ICE agents detaining at least two men sitting at the bus stop outside. The men appeared to be handcuffed and surrounded by armed agents wearing face coverings. The incident occurred at around 6 a.m., according to witnesses. The L.A. Metro stop itself, Line 662, is part of a loop route that serves Altadena and Pasadena.

Pasadena resident John Williams, who works with local nonprofit The Center for Restorative Justice, said he was standing outside Winchell’s Wednesday when he heard a commotion of honking on Orange Grove Boulevard.

He said two unmarked ICE vehicles were stopped at the red light waiting to turn left onto Los Robles Avenue. A member of the public tried photographing a license plate when, Williams said, an agent got out of a vehicle and pointed what appeared to be a gun at the person photographing.

“When he draws we all start yelling, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!,’” he said.

Williams said that car drove through a red light to turn left onto Los Robles. Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous, recorded what appeared to be ICE agents stopping in front of Urth Caffé farther southeast, on Colorado Boulevard at Madison Avenue in Pasadena.

That account particularly incensed Chu, who in recent weeks has led a delegation to investigate ICE facility conditions, including at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center, near Victorville.

“That was beyond the pale. This brute of a guy jumps out of a car and points a gun (at the person taking pictures). He could have shot him. And for what? For the crime of using his video?” said Chu, who was ultimately joined by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents the area in the state Legislature.

ICE officials could not be reached on Wednesday for comment about the detentions or the interaction with the public.

A group of Homeland Security officers, clad in tactical gear and uniform, at the detention facility on Wednesday afternoon briefly spoke with Chu and to Gordo, but in the end, none of them let the lawmakers in.

Chu’s repeated attempts through an intercom system at the facility’s door, citing her rights as a member of Congress to enter, were unsuccessful. And it would take several attempts before Gordo got in, pleading with guards about the medicine needed by a detainee — a reason for which he didn’t come in the first place.

“That’s disenfranchisement of not only a member of Congress but of the people who elected her,” Gordo said. “They denied the people’s representative to do that.”

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network condemned the ICE raid, saying federal agents abducted six immigrant workers.

“ICE is attacking the very same people who build, remediate, clean, protect, improve, maintain and rebuild our community. Immigrants who cleared the debris around our homes and businesses when wildfires raged in January,” said Pablo Alvarado, NDLON’s co-executive director in a statement.

By around 8:45 a.m., a group of about 20 people had gathered at the intersection outside Dena Burgers having heard about the ICE activity.

A few hours after the 6 a.m. arrests at the bus stop, other eyewitnesses said what appeared to be an ICE agent returned to the intersection in an unmarked car. It’s unclear if this was the same incident witnessed by Williams, or another one.

“I saw commotion. The people there were trying to get the ID from this individual wearing military clothes — a black vest and wearing a mask. He was looking for someone to detain. Then he got out of his car and he pulled a gun on us,” said Jose, who did not give his last name for fear of reprisals. He said the gun was a 9mm pistol.

“He got back in his car and went south. I called 9-1-1. He was trying to get somebody into his car but I don’t think he took anybody,” Jose said.

Around 9 a.m., Pasadena Police officers arrived at the intersection and took a report from witnesses.

City of Pasadena spokesperson Lisa Derderian said the city was looking into the incident, but said Pasadena Police does not coordinate or participate with the federal government’s enforcement activities.

“Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not state or local governments,” the statement read. “Our focus and priority will remain on enforcing state and local laws to ensure the safety and well-being of our diverse community.”

“We at the City of Pasadena are deeply saddened and concerned by the events that have taken place in the region over the past several days surrounding the federal government’s immigration enforcement activities,” a city statement said.

The Pasadena Unified School District said in a statement they heard reports of ICE activity near a school site, but they said that turned out to be false. The district said a monitoring of all its school sites “found them calm, secure, and operating smoothly. All students and employees are safe.”

One local clerk at the shopping center at Orange Grove and Los Robles said ICE agents came back later in the day and encircled the parking lot.

LA Metro bus No. 662 continued running all day. Sitting at the stop waiting for the bus to arrive around noon was Shawn Pelletier, who said he served in the U.S. Marines.

“President Trump is doing a great job. Keep up the good work,” Pelletier said. Pelletier is a U.S. citizen and was born in Los Angeles.

But the fact that it happened at or near an L.A. Metro bus stop caught the eye of Metro Board Chair and LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who said she directed Metro staffers to report back to the board about Metro’s protocols, if ICE agents board a bus or train.

L.A. County

Hundreds of people have been detained by federal agents since the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement began on June 6.

That enforcement has led to dozens of workers detained by ICE officers in a series of raids that include in LA’s fashion district and at Home Depot and other store parking lots in Southern California, including in the cities of Whittier, Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera, Irvine and Downey.

On Tuesday, federal agents conducted immigration raids throughout Pico Rivera, prompting the city’s top administrator’s concern about “increasingly concerned about the nature and tone of these recent actions.”

Chu said she was also at the facility to see Adrian Martinez, a 20-year-old who local leaders said was a U.S. citizen detained in a raid in Pico Rivera.

On Wednesday, Maria Esther Murillo showed up just to see if she could deliver medicine for her husband, Jose, a gardener who had been detained while working earlier in the day in La Mirada. Tears flowed as she and her daughter, Denise, waited at the imposing door with a speaker on it that leads to an area where inmates can speak to loved ones across a barrier.

From Mexico, he’d been working in the U.S. for 20 years, she said. After the larger crowd left, a detention officer let her in, accompanied by Gordo, who hadn’t originally come to the site for that reason.

Gordo said the guard asked the detainee if he had any property on him that he wanted to give to his wife while she was there. He handed her the cash he’d just been paid, keeping just a bare fraction of cash for himself, said Gordo, observing the encounter.

As Gordo was leaving, another family was trying to get in to leave some eyeglasses for someone who’d been swept up in a raid. They were turned away, Gordo said.

Todd Lyons, the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended his tactics last week against criticism that authorities are being too heavy-handed. He has said ICE is averaging about 1,600 arrests per day and that the agency has arrested “dangerous criminals.”

Amid massive protests over his policies last weekend, the Trump administration directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels, after Trump expressed alarm about the impact aggressive enforcement is having on those industries, the Associated Press reported, citing a U.S. official familiar with the matter who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

But at the same time, he appears to have doubled down on Democrat-run cities, such as in and around L.A, where dozens of smaller cities are home to many immigrant families and businesses that rely on them. That ramp-up appears to be in pursuit of a quota “to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” Trump said on social media.

The raids, however, have sparked strong rebukes in an area where advocates say many who are being apprehended are not the violent criminals that Trump promised would be the focus of federal enforcement.

“These raids have targeted our immigrant neighbors in parking lots, Home Depot, grocery stores, car washes, swap meets, churches, and other places of work where people are simply trying to make a living,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis on Tuesday. “These are hardworking individuals, business owners, abuelitos, fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers whose removal have already had devastating consequences to our communities and our families.”

The result has been fear generated in L.A. County, where nearly one in every five Angelenos are either undocumented or live with someone who is, is a “man-made disaster,” said county Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Vigil for the detained

In the evening Wednesday, around 150 to 200 people showed up outside the Winchell’s Donuts in Pasadena to demand “ICE out of Dena.”

The mood at the vigil was largely joyous, especially with the band Los Jornaleros del Norte playing live music.

Gerardo Diaz, the nephew of Pedro Vasquez, one of those reported detained Wednesday morning, said to the attendees, “My uncle is not a criminal. He has done nothing wrong and yet he was taken away in handcuffs. … I refuse to stay silent.”

Freelance writer Julianna Lozada contributed to this report.