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Gas kept crowd at bay, Elian raider says

MIAMI - A federal agent testified Thursday that he sprayed a tear gas gun at demonstrators outside the home of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives to keep them from surging over barricades and interfering with the raid to seize the boy and return him to his father in Cuba.

Agent Daniel J. Dargan, testifying in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by 13 people who say they were injured by agents, said he was the only one assigned a gas gun during the April 2000 raid.

Dargan testified he sprayed the gas intermittently to make the crowd recede after a chair and other objects were thrown over the police barricade.

He said no one ordered him to spray the gas, but he did "in response to the crowd surging toward the barricade."

Dargan, who was wearing a gas mask, also testified that he did not hear anything or speak during the three-minute raid. He said he did not warn the crowd he would spray gas.

Neighbors have testified that the agents did not identify themselves or warn the bystanders before spraying the gas.

The 13 plaintiffs - nine people in neighboring houses and four women who were behind police barricades - are seeking as much as $250,000. They claim injuries and emotional distress were caused by agents bearing shotguns and gas guns.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore is hearing the trial without a jury. Testimony is expected to end today. Plaintiffs' attorney Larry Klayman tried to ask Dargan about claims that some agents in the raid voiced and demonstrated anti-Cuban bias, but Moore wouldn't let him, saying the testimony would be irrelevant.

Richard McGahey, an INS team leader, testified he deployed a gas canister and yelled, "Gas, gas, gas!" He said the purpose of such a yell is to "warn everybody around you gas is now being used."

He said that although he gave no verbal order, his use of it meant other agents could use it, too.

"I'd have to call that an order, when I deployed," he said.

According to part of the INS operational plan for the raid, if the always-present crowd on the street outside the home moved past the barricades toward the raiding agents, team leader McGahey "will give command to deploy gas ... to produce a cloud in front of the advancing crowd."

McGahey said the crowd was "extremely hostile" and had they breached the barricade, "they could have seriously delayed us from leaving the area."

Agent Michael Compitiello testified that crowd members did climb over the barricade.

Elian survived a shipwreck that killed his mother and 10 others fleeing Cuba in November 1999. His Miami relatives balked at returning him to his father in Cuba.

The Easter weekend raid snatched the screaming 6-year-old from the home.

[Last modified January 28, 2005, 00:20:16]