A Venezuelan asylum seeker who was shot in the back by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Texas is facing a federal assault charge, after prosecutors accused him of striking the officer with his car’s side-view mirror. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, appeared in federal court in Austin on Tuesday, where he was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The charge stems from a September 20 encounter that began while Garces Perez was making a DoorDash food delivery near a shopping centre in Austin, the Texas state capital. A federal complaint filed on Monday says immigration officers noticed that Garces Perez’s car had its emergency lights flashing, and they ran a database check. They found it was registered to Garces Perez, who was subject to a final order of removal from the US.
When the officers approached, Garces Perez handed over his driver’s license through a partially opened window but did not get out of the car, the complaint says. He asked the officers to wait until his wife could arrive to retrieve the vehicle. Court documents describe the exchange up to that point as “pleasant and not aggressive”.
About a minute later, however, court documents say Garces Perez “abruptly” closed his window and drove off, striking one of the officers in the torso with his driver’s side mirror. That officer chased Garces Perez in his own vehicle and caught up with him a short time later. In the complaint, the officer alleges that Garces Perez then tried to drive into him, prompting him to open fire.
There is no publicly available footage showing the events described in the complaint, including the shooting. Videos, however, have circulated online showing the shooting’s aftermath, with Garces Perez injured in his car. The complaint relies on unreleased body-camera footage from one of the two ICE officers who stopped Garces Perez.
The second officer was not wearing a body camera, according to the affidavit. That officer says he was struck by Garces Perez’s side mirror and later shot him. Garces Perez, however, gave federal investigators a different account of the moments immediately before he was shot.
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