Stolen LA County Fire Department Jacket Tips Off Deputies

A Los Angeles County Fire Department jacket was the red flag for sheriff's deputies in arresting 49-year-old man on the suspicion he had received stolen property.

Hipolito Martinez (pictured, below), seen wearing the jacket in Palmdale Wednesday morning, is now behind bars, ineligible to be released on bail due to an immigration hold, said Sgt. David Moore of the sheriff's Palmdale Station.

Martinez, who also uses three aliases, according to L.A. County jail records, told deputies that he was not a firefighter, but had found the jacket and believed that it could have been stolen. The fire department then confirmed that a jacket had been stolen from a truck during a response call in the area on Monday.

Martinez was being held in lieu of $55,000 bail when federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents placed a no-bail hold on him for an alleged immigration violation. This alleged violation was apparently revealed by ICE's "Secure Communities" program.

Criticized by immigrants' rights organizations for infringing on civil and human rights, the program utilizes an information-sharing partnership between the ICE and the FBI to compare local and federal immigration records and check for possible violations.

Several civil rights groups have filed a public records lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department to force the release of all documentation between the sheriff's office and the ICE in regard to the "Secure Communities" program. The Sheriff's Department contests the release of the documents.