A youth arrested after a police intervention at a Queens club ended up in the deportation process, according to information from his sister.

In spite of the fact that the charges against Fabián Barrios were for minor infractions, after he was arrested and entered a guilty plea, the immigrant was sent directly from the prison on Rikers Island into Federal detention and is now in the process of deportation, said Irma Galindo, Barrios' sister.

The incident, according to our information, took place around two in the morning on February 17th, at Queens Palace in Woodside. The concert by the band Rebel de Punk had already ended and the lights had been turned up when police officers rushed into the club, forcing people to flee. Galindo said that one of the officers was acting in a menacing way toward a photographer, and that Barrios began videotaping the incident.

The police officer, who was “hysterical,” then turned against Barrios, said Galindo. The officer used a Taser electric shock pistol to subjugate Barrios, though his sister said Barrios had done nothing more than videotape. “I told them, 'Let him go, he's not doing anything wrong, let go of my brother,'” declared Galindo, who showed a video she herself had made, in which her brother is seen lying immobile in the street and an officer with the Taser pistol in his hand.

Because of a previous domestic violence incident, Barrios' legal situation became more complicated. His sister indicated that at present she doesn't even know where her brother is being held and that she has been told only that she must pay at least $1,500 if she wants to get her brother out of detention quickly and sent back to Mexico, his country of origin. “I feel like my brother has been kidnapped.”

Since the complaint was made on a weekend, it was not possible to verify the municipal records in the case. Galindo said she decided not to present her complaint to the Review Board which investigates police brutality cases, because what surprised her most was the connection between the municipal police and the immigration authorities. For several years, the New York Immigration Coalition has been denouncing the police policy in the city of making immigration arrests in certain cases.