The superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools was found with weapons and cash when detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers Friday morning, according to statements from ICE.

School district officials and politicians spoke out Friday about the arrest of Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts, with some calling for empathy and others appalled that someone with “a prior weapons charge and an active deportation order” was placed in charge of Iowa’s largest school district.

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Initially, online information from ICE indicated Roberts had been placed in the Pottawattamie County Jail after his arrest. Later on Friday, however, Roberts’ name and information were no longer searchable on the ICE locator website.

According to a press release from ICE, Roberts was in possession of a handgun, a hunting knife and $3,000 in cash when he was detained. Agents had approached Roberts in his vehicle during a “targeted enforcement operation,” the release stated, after which he allegedly sped off. Officers later found his car abandoned, the agency stated.

The Iowa State Patrol assisted ICE in locating the vehicle after Roberts allegedly drove off, according to a release from the Iowa Department of Public Safety. The release stated that Roberts was in the custody of “immigration authorities.”

In its press release, ICE said Roberts has “existing weapon possession charges” from February 2020, which the Iowa Capital Dispatch was unable to independently verify. Roberts did plead guilty to unlawful possession of a loaded firearm in a vehicle after a November 2021 offense, a fifth-degree penalty, according to court records from Erie, Pa.

Roberts was also given what ICE called a “final order of removal by an immigration judge” in May 2024 after coming to the United States in 1999 on a student visa.

“This suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal law enforcement,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations St. Paul Field Office Director Sam Olson in the agency’s press release. “This should be a wake-up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien was hired without work authorization, a final order of removal, and a prior weapons charge is beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district.”

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Mason Mauro, deputy communications director for the office of the governor of Iowa, said Governor Kim Reynolds was “made aware” Roberts had been arrested, and added that she was “in contact with the Iowa Department of Public Safety and federal authorities.”

U.S. Representative Zach Nunn said in a social media statement he stands with law enforcement, adding that Friday’s incident emphasizes the need to “fix our broken immigration system.” Nunn’s office has opened more than 800 cases since 2023 to “help Iowans navigate immigration issues,” he said online, and that work will continue.

“An individual with a prior weapons charge and an active deportation order should never have been placed in this position of public trust,” Nunn said in an online statement.

The school district had little information to share at a Friday afternoon press conference, with school board president Jackie Norris saying “there is much we do not know.” She acknowledged that new information has come to light in the wake of Roberts’ arrest, but added that the district has not been able to independently verify that information.

The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners granted Roberts a license to serve in Iowa as a superintendent in July 2023 when he started in his job at Des Moines Public Schools.

“It seems fitting to take a page out of Dr. Roberts’s book and ask the community to engage in radical empathy as we work through the situation together,” Norris said Friday. “Radical empathy is the recognition that we can disagree and still empathize with each other. The respect of others’ humanity — this concept will be essential as we wait to learn more.”

States Newsroom D.C. Bureau Reporter Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.