Welcome to Arrest Stories. A fifty-four-year-old school superintendent's arrest by federal immigration agents has revealed a stunning web of weapons charges, failed immigration status, and a dramatic chase through Des Moines. Here's what may have happened.
On September twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-five, Ian Roberts was serving as Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials approached him for arrest. What unfolded next reads like a crime thriller. According to official reports, Roberts identified himself to ICE agents, then suddenly sped off in his district-provided vehicle, abandoning it near a wooded area approximately two hundred meters away where he attempted to hide in thick brush.
Iowa State Patrol officers assisted ICE in locating Roberts in his hiding spot. Inside his abandoned vehicle, agents discovered three thousand dollars in cash, a loaded handgun wrapped in a towel under the driver's seat, and a hunting knife. The pistol had allegedly been purchased in Arkansas by someone believed to be Roberts' spouse.
The investigation deepened when ATF officers searched Roberts' home, uncovering three additional firearms: a loaded pistol hidden beneath living room chair cushions, a loaded rifle in a bedroom closet, and a shotgun concealed behind the bedroom headboard.
Roberts, a native of Guyana who entered the United States on a student visa in nineteen ninety-nine, had received a final deportation order in May twenty twenty-four. His immigration history shows multiple failed attempts at legal status, including green card applications denied as early as January two thousand three. He was previously convicted in Pennsylvania on January twentieth, twenty twenty-two, for unlawful possession of a loaded firearm.
One official stated, "Roberts' rap sheet and immigration history reveal a long record of criminal conduct in the United States. He should never have been serving in a role overseeing children in Iowa's largest school district."
District leadership expressed shock, with one administrator saying, "For all of us, this is not what we anticipated when we welcomed Dr. Ian Roberts into central Iowa and the Des Moines School District a little more than two years ago."
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.