When was elian gonzalez

He became the subject of a fierce custody battle between the United States and Cuba before he was brought back to live with his father in Cardenas.

Pictured: Elian looks out to the water as he tells ABC that he loves the sea and doesn't "see a reason to fear it. Elian with his fiance, Ilianet Escano, who he met 8 years ago and started dating in high school. He proposed on Feb. Cubans move through a street in Cardenas, Elian's home town, nearly miles from Havana.

It was agents coming in through the back door, knocking down fences to get through the back door. They are here! The Yankees are here! They pulled up in two minivans. They chanted, they screamed, lights went on, they formed human chains, we virtually had to push our way to the front door.

Behind us, there was a riot going on. It was clearly organized resistance. We were federal agents executing a search warrant. Open the door! Tony Zumbado : There was probably a total of 15 [agents], five or six that came through the front and through the back another six. So when we walked in, we were choking from the tear gas, and everyone inside was choking.

Faith had it that he went to the right room. Tony Zumbado : The [agents] were cursing at me because I was in their way, and they were cursing at everyone they saw.

Other agents aimed guns at attorneys Kendall Coffey and Manny Diaz, who stood frozen in the dining room. Please put the guns down!

Janet Reno , then-attorney general of the United States in a press conference : If you look at it carefully, it shows that the gun was pointed to the side and that the finger was not on the trigger. It is important in this situation to look carefully and to understand the facts, and to understand that we had received information that there were guns, perhaps in the crowd, perhaps in the house.

It was unclear. But the safety of all who were involved was paramount. When law enforcement goes into a situation like that, it must go in prepared for the unexpected. I was going to try to push him up there. Before we blink our eyes there were these soldiers that were inside the house dressed in SWAT gear and gas masks. I just looked at him. Then, boom, he puts it back on me, and then a woman shows up in the room, another agent with no weapons.

Prima Mari! Cousin Mari! Shut up! He was afraid for his life. We got out into the street. They got him into the van. They close that door and they were gone. On Thanksgiving Day in , a 5-year-old Gonzalez was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast.

His mother and nine others drowned after the rickety boat they were traveling in capsized while they attempted to reach the United States from Cuba. Read More. Gonzalez went to live with relatives in Miami who refused to return him to his father in Cuba. Juan Miguel Gonzalez said he was unaware of his ex-wife's plan to take the boy on the dangerous journey to the US.

US immigration officials eventually decided that Gonzalez should be returned to his father's custody, who came to the United States to argue for his son's return. Alan Diaz, who took Elian Gonzalez photo, dies at Eventually armed US federal agents stormed the Miami home where Gonzalez was staying with his uncle to reunite him with his father. Rioting broke out in Cuban American communities in Miami, where many felt Gonzalez's return to Cuba would deliver a propaganda victory to Fidel Castro.