By Sue Anne Pressley. Washington Post Staff Writer. Saturday, April 22, 2000; 8:22 AM
MIAMI, April 22 – Armed federal agents stormed the Little Havana house of Lazaro Gonzalez before dawn today, allegedly warning protesters they would shoot them before carrying away the blanket-wrapped figure of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to reunite him with his father.
In 10 minutes, without serious physical injury to a crowd of dozens of demonstrators outside the home, the five-month standoff over the boy's continued stay with his Miami relatives was over.
This morning, the boy and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, were reunited at Andrews Air Force Base, where they are expected to stay under tight security for at least several days.
In Miami, details of the raid came from family and friends who were in the Little Havana House.
"They came in by force. They didn't even knock on the door," said Donato Dalyrymple, one of two fishermen who rescued the shipwrecked child from the sea on Thanksgiving, who was inside the house. "They ripped him out of my arms. He was screaming 'Help me, help me.' I rescued him
from the ocean, but I couldn't rescue him from the United States government."
About 100 protesters who were keeping vigil all night outside the house began screaming and climbing over the police barricade when a convoy of six white vans with tinted windows pulled up in front of the home at 5:10 a.m.
The federal agents, many of them wearing dark jackets with INS officer on the back, hit the crowd with pepper spray, forcing them back. Other officers knocked down the front door of the home and stormed inside. They were out within seconds, a woman surrounded by other officers, carried Elian to
a van waiting with its motor running.
Several demonstrators who broke through the barricade and police line and attempted to form a human chain at the front door were knocked to the ground at gunpoint, they said.
"They hit Ramon [Sanchez a protest leader], on the head with the butt of a gun and said, 'get out of the way, we will shoot,' " said Felipe Rojas, a spokesman for Sanchez's Democracy Movement, who said he was face down on the ground next to Sanchez.
The vans – one of them with the woman carrying Elian, were gone as quickly as they came.
Angry protesters, pooring water on their burning eyes and coughing, began throwing plastic chairs and garbage cans in the direction of the retreating vans. Two young men wrestled a large American flag to the ground and began beating and tearing at it. Men and women sobbed with open mouths,
slumping to the ground in despair.
"We were assaulted for no reason," said Gus Garcia, vice chairman of the Dade County Democratic Party, who was passing out cookies to the crowd when he said he was sprayed. "The whole world saw us get attacked."
Karen DeYoung, reporting from Washington, contributed to this report.
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