Border agent charged with assaulting police officer dies days after court appearance
A border agent in southern California accused of having attacked a long Beach police officer outside a restaurant and of resisting arrest last month died just two days after his last appearance in court.
According to the Coroner office in the County of Riverside, east of Los Angeles, Isaiah Anthony Hodgson died on Friday. The mode of death is still under investigation.
Earlier in the week, Hodgson, 29, appeared in court and had a preliminary hearing for the end of September, according to court documents.
He faced seven accusations, including three counts of resistance to arrest, a battery leader with injuries to a police officer, a chief of port of a firearm hidden in public, of a port of a concealed firearm and a wearing chief of a loaded firearm.
He knew seven years in prison if he was sentenced. He pleaded not guilty to all accusations, according to the judicial archives.
The accusations arise from an incident on July 7 when Hodgson was on leave and would have been unruly in a popular promenade destination filled with restaurants and stores.
He was accused of entering women’s toilet in a restaurant and approaching a woman who saw her firearm and firearm magazine. Witnesses told the police that he had left the restaurant shortly after the woman told the restaurant director that there was a drunk man with a firearm in the women’s bathroom.
According to investigators, the security guards near the restaurant said Hodgson several times to leave, but he refused. When the long Beach police arrived, he remained obstinate and would not cooperate, the authorities said.
“While Hodgson resisted the arrest, he would have become agitated and physical with the police, injuring one of them,” said the District of the County of Los Angeles at the time.
“The conduct exposed by Mr. Hodgson, a border patrol agent who has a duty to respect the law and protect his citizens, is unacceptable and deeply disturbing,” added Hochman in a statement. “No one is above the law, whatever their position or badge.”
