An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer has been indicted in Texas after allegedly striking an immigrant with an unmarked SUV.
Mario Alberto Morales, 33, surrendered Monday, days after a grand jury indicted him on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Surveillance footage allegedly shows Morales driving the unmarked SUV over Miguel Parra Hernandez during a pursuit in a Houston parking lot on October 10. Hernandez survived.
The 48-year-old construction worker was running from the vehicle when he was hit, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Parra Hernandez suffered a broken leg and remains in federal custody at a rehabilitation facility. District Attorney Sean Teare announced the indictment at a news conference, where he presented body-camera footage from the incident along with a recording of Morales’s 911 call.
ICE has maintained that Parra Hernandez ran into the vehicle’s path. Teare, however, said the video disputes that version of events.
“The evidence we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,” Teare said.
Morales’s attorneys counter that the collision was an “accident” and accuse the prosecutor of launching a politically motivated smear campaign just before the midterm elections.
Mario Alberto Morales, 33, surrendered Monday after allegedly running over Miguel Parra Hernandez in Houston, Texas, on October 10
Surveillance footage appeared to show an unmarked SUV pursuing a man who was running away
“Officer Morales is an Army veteran. He was sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States,” his attorney, Michael Wynne, told reporters.
Wynne argued that Teare intentionally announced the indictment on Friday, the final day of early voting, in order to shape the news cycle.
Morales’s other attorney, David Lindenmuth, told ABC 13 that the incident was “clearly just an accident” and accused officials of having “invented a crime out of thin air.”
Both Lindenmuth and ICE have said Morales did not deliberately hit Parra Hernandez.
“Mr. Morales is truly a good man, a former member of our military, that has given his entire life to public service either for his country or in or adjacent to law enforcement,” Lindenmuth told The Associated Press.
Teare rejected the suggestion that the case was politically motivated. He is also seeking to have the alleged offense prosecuted in federal court.
“We’ll press this case and litigate it the way the framers designed it, and that is in a federal forum,” he said, according to ABC 13.
Lindenmuth said Morales had served as an ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officer for just over a year.
Morales’s lawyers say the collision was an “accident” and describe the indictment as a political smear ahead of the midterm elections.
Parra Hernandez suffered a fractured leg, nerve damage and continuing pain, according to his attorney
He also previously made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House seat representing Texas’s 34th District, according to Ballotpedia.
Parra Hernandez has lived in Harris County for more than three decades and had neither a deportation order nor a criminal record, Teare said.
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He had been traveling in a vehicle that ICE officers attempted to stop. Parra Hernandez got out and ran, with Morales pursuing him in a Jeep Cherokee. Previously released surveillance footage appears to show the Jeep crossing a median at speed and heading toward Parra Hernandez as he fled.
Body-camera footage shown by Teare on Friday captured Morales making several abrupt steering movements before the SUV jolted.
Morales brought the vehicle to a stop, exited and turned toward Parra Hernandez, who was lying several feet away. Hernandez was clutching his leg and shouting in pain.
“He got hit with a car, bro,” Morales was heard saying. It was unclear whom he was addressing.
After another ICE officer arrived, Morales said, “I was coming in and I hit him with the car.”
In a 911 recording made while Morales requested an ambulance, Parra Hernandez can be heard crying out. Morales told the operator, “He’s fine. He’s just complaining of pain.”
Morales’s attorney David Lindenmuth told ABC 13 that the collision was “clearly just an accident” and accused officials of “inventing a crime out of thin air”
District Attorney Sean Teare said: “The evidence we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated”
Parra Hernandez told deputies that he initially thought a police officer was stopping the vehicle he was riding in. He said he became frightened and ran when the man began putting on a mask.
According to a Harris County Sheriff’s Office incident report reviewed by the AP, Parra Hernandez repeatedly told deputies that Morales “threw the car at me.”
Morales told deputies that he had not intentionally struck Parra Hernandez. He acknowledged that he did not brake before the impact and said he was attempting to avoid another truck in the parking lot.
The report said body-camera footage showed two other suspects in Morales’s back seat. However, the deputy wrote that Morales said no one else was inside the SUV.
“From the beginning, the video told a different story than what was offered by the agency,” Parra Hernandez’s attorney, Kim Bruno, said Friday. She added that her client sustained not only leg fractures but also nerve damage and chronic pain.
After Parra Hernandez was taken into custody, ICE released a photograph of another man, Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, identifying him as the target of that day’s operation.
The agency said Mendoza-Cervantes had been seen getting into a vehicle with Parra Hernandez.
Parra Hernandez’s relatives said they had never heard of the man. FIEL, a Houston immigrant-rights organization assisting the family, said Mendoza-Cervantes’ daughter told representatives that her father had died in 2017.
Parra Hernandez’s sister held a sign at a news conference Wednesday. Parra Hernandez told deputies he thought a police officer was stopping the vehicle he was in but fled after the man began putting on a mask
ICE said the operation targeted another immigrant who entered Parra Hernandez’s vehicle. His family said they did not know the man, while relatives said he had died in 2017
Teare’s office has previously said its investigation found no evidence that Parra Hernandez and the man ICE identified as Mendoza-Cervantes were together in a vehicle, contradicting the agency’s account.
ICE has not addressed claims that the person it was seeking had been dead for several years.
Our News Outlet has contacted attorneys for Morales and Parra Hernandez, as well as ICE, for comment.
