“This doesn’t make D.C. safer. It’ll just make people not come to D.C. The cruelty is always the point.”
That’s what Fox News token lefty Jessica Tarlov said shortly after Aimee Cho of WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., broke viral video of federal agents detaining an unidentified man on the National Mall.
“He appeared to try to escape, then was quickly tackled to the ground by several agents + was screaming in Spanish ‘please, I’m not a criminal, I work here, I want to be with my family,’” Cho said on X.
BREAKING: Just saw DC Police + federal agents detain a man on the National Mall. He appeared to try to escape, then was quickly tackled to the ground by several agents + was screaming in Spanish “please, I’m not a criminal, I work here, I want to be with my family” @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/56IlXEvYbN
— Aimee Cho (@AimeeCho4) August 20, 2025
Well, that man was unidentified, and is no more — and Tarlov’s social media post has been deleted.
Why, you ask? Because it turns out that “cruelty” wasn’t the point of the man’s arrest — or even the fact that he was in this country illegally.
Yes, it turns out that the man who became the face of the left’s war on President Donald Trump’s declaration of a crime emergency under the Home Rule Act of 1973 — which allowed him to federalize D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy both federal law enforcement and National Guard — was David Perez-Teofani.
He’d been charged with child sex crimes last year, according to the New York Post, and had illegally entered the United States three times before defying “a final order of removal” after twice returning voluntarily to his native Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security said.
UPDATE: ICE has sent a statement on this man’s detention, saying his name is David Perez-Teofani and that he was arrested in Fairfax County in 2024 and charged with aggravated sexual battery against a minor under 13 @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/KOhxoBnXDD
— Aimee Cho (@AimeeCho4) August 20, 2025
“Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court records viewed by The Post show that Perez-Teofani was arrested and charged in January 2024 with indecent liberties with a child under the age of 15 and aggravated sexual battery,” the outlet noted.
“The charges were later dropped by prosecutors, but it’s unclear why.”
Well, unless you make a priori assumptions about why prosecutors in one of the most liberal counties in one of the most liberal metropolitan areas in the United States might not want to pursue charges against an illegal alien, even one charged with child sex crimes.
“Prosecutors refuse to prosecute,” a representative for Immigration and Customs Enforcement told WRC regarding the decision not to prosecute the man.
And indeed, as the New York Post noted, “Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steven Descano, a Democrat, has been criticized in the past over his handling of cases involving illegal migrants charged with sex crimes.”
And Tarlov wasn’t the only one making the assumption that this guy was telling law enforcement the truth, with Politico’s Josh Gerstein quote-posting Cho’s video with the hashtag “#newnormal.”
#newnormal https://t.co/Zc3VZhKyVW
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) August 20, 2025
Trump’s Rapid Response 47 X account hit back: “Yes, Josh — arresting and deporting illegals charged with sex crimes against minors is, in fact, the ‘new normal.’” Touché.
But it was mostly Tarlov who got the mockery:
When Jessica Tarlov posted this since deleted tweet, she knew nothing about the situation beyond the bare fact that DC police had detained someone. She tweeted anyway, fully aware that information was incomplete. The possibility that later details could make her initial take look… pic.twitter.com/rHKXI7Pj7U
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) August 20, 2025
She deleted her post. pic.twitter.com/hzSHn7qeNq
— Chris (@ChrizDDv3) August 20, 2025
Unreal. https://t.co/uyQUvzGgvj
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) August 20, 2025
Should each journalist who refused to retract their lies be fired?
Unfortunately, it’s all too real. It doesn’t matter whether or not this man was guilty. If you’re a woman of the left, you can always just say it’s all about cruelty. If it comes out later that this guy is a real criminal — one with a history of removal and re-entry, as well as a charge of sexual abuse of a minor — just delete your post. Conservatives might care, but the media isn’t going to.
It’s all too real, sadly — and it’s why the media case against Trump’s crackdown against crime in D.C. and against illegal immigration will always be a rigged one.
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