A woman who was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Worcester last week was suspected of using a phone-charging cable to strike a pregnant relative three months ago, according to police records.
Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira was charged with one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a pregnant victim.
She initially appeared in court on Feb. 3, where she pleaded not guilty and paid $500 cash bail, according to court records. Her last court appearance was a pretrial hearing on March 24.
At 1:47 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1, a Worcester police officer went to an apartment on Main Street, the police report read. A relative told the officer that Ferreira-De Oliveira struck them with a phone charging cable and was aware of the person’s pregnancy. Ferreira-De Oliveira was arrested that day.
Days after ICE agents detained Ferreira-De Oliveira and Worcester police arrested two people, including Ferreira-De Oliveira’s daughter and Worcester School Committee candidate Ashley Spring, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement about Ferreira-De Oliveira’s prior charges.
“The target of this ICE operation was a violent criminal illegal alien, Ferreira de Oliveira. She was arrested by local police for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery on a pregnant victim,” according to the statement obtained by WHDH-TV.
Ferreira-De Oliveira, who comes from Brazil, is currently being detained at the Wyatt Detention Center, in Central Falls, R.I., according to ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System (ODLS).
When ICE agents arrived at Eureka Street on May 8, chaos erupted as a crowd of over 30 people approached the agents and shouted at them, asking if they had a warrant to arrest Ferreira-De Oliveira. She was in a car by around 11 a.m. that morning, according to Jill Phillips of Worcester, who was at the scene.
Worcester police were called to the scene when a federal agent who was surrounded by a “large group of about 25 people,” police said in a statement.
As the car containing Ferreira-De Oliveira was about to leave, her daughter, who carried a newborn in her arms, stood in front of the car and tried to stop it, police said. Officers told her that she was endangering the baby and that she needed to move. She handed the baby to another woman, ran up to the car and kicked the passenger side door as the car drove away.
Worcester police arrested her as it appeared as though she was going to chase after the car, police said. She was arrested for reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The daughter has since been released and is now with family friends along with her sister Augusta Clara, the baby and another sister who is also a minor, police confirmed.
Ferreira-De Oliveira’s other daughter, Clara, 21, last spoke with her mother on Monday, according to Andrew Georges Lattarulo, the lawyer who is representing Clara in a different case.
“I think that ICE was there to just pick up the entire family,” Lattarulo previously told MassLive.
