AUSTIN, Texas — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and injured a man in Austin on Sunday afternoon, authorities said, prompting a group of protesters opposed to ICE to gather near the site soon afterward.
The man, whose name was not released, was hospitalized in serious but stable condition after being struck once in the torso on Austin’s north side, Police Chief Lisa Davis said during a news briefing attended by the mayor and other city officials.
The Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency overseeing ICE, did not attend the briefing and had not immediately provided additional information.
Davis said Austin police had no role in either the enforcement action or the shooting. The incident followed a traffic stop, she said.
Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said he wants Austin police included in the investigation to ensure the process has “clear, third-party eyes.” He said ICE should not be left to investigate the shooting by itself.
Residents deserve to feel secure in their own city, Watson said, adding that a thorough investigation would help strengthen public confidence in the findings.
Davis said she did not know the wounded man’s nationality. With the shooting still under investigation, she said there were few details she could release, though the department’s special investigations unit had arrived at the scene.
Local media showed a dark blue Toyota Corolla parked beneath an overpass. The vehicle had damage near the passenger-side door and what appeared to be bullet impacts.
A sizable law enforcement contingent remained in the area as roughly 100 protesters assembled nearby. Some demonstrators shouted profanities at officers carrying riot shields, while others called out as passing drivers honked in apparent support. One protester carried a sign that read “Nobody is safe” on one side and “ICE Nazi” on the other.
Asked whether local officials knew the federal agent’s whereabouts, particularly after agents involved in shootings elsewhere have left their states, Watson said they did not. Still, he said he hoped the agent would remain in Austin and “certainly not leave the state” while the officer-involved shooting is investigated.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Austin, also urged officials to provide the public with a transparent account of what happened.
“It is awful that this horror has come to our doorstep,” Casar told reporters. He said Austin could not be safe while ICE continued its expanded presence in the city and called for the agency to end its surge there.
The Austin shooting follows a sharp nationwide expansion of ICE enforcement this summer. The agency recorded more than 50,000 arrests per month in July and August, the first time that level had been reached in its history.
In July, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Houston. Federal agents in unmarked vehicles had pursued him as he transported his construction crew to a job site.
That same month, an ICE officer shot Johan Sebastián, a 25-year-old Colombian man, in Maine. Several relatives told The Associated Press that the officer, an Army veteran, had experienced serious mental health struggles since childhood and should never have been issued a badge and firearm to patrol U.S. streets.
The administration’s immigration crackdown also drew widespread condemnation last winter after the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.
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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalists Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island; and Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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