DoorDash driver shot by ICE in Texas is charged with assaulting officers
The Department of Justice has charged a Venezuelan immigrant with assault after he was shot by a federal immigration officer during a traffic stop in Austin, Texas.
Wilber Garcés Pérez, who said he was driving for DoorDash when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped him on September 20, was sent to a detention center with a bullet still lodged near his spine within hours of the incident, according to his attorney.
An unsealed affidavit signed by a Homeland Security investigator accuses Garcés Pérez of striking an officer in the torso with his car’s side-view mirror before leading agents on what investigators described as a high-speed chase.
The ICE officer, identified only as “L.G.” in the affidavit, was not wearing a body-mounted camera at the time. He shot Garcés Pérez in the back through the back right window of his car. Another officer who was on the scene, identified only as D.F., was wearing a bodycam, but he turned it off during the pursuit.
ICE agents “conducted a law enforcement database” search on Garcés Pérez’s Toyota sedan after noticing it was parked in front of a restaurant with its emergency indicators. The agents “confirmed that a final order of removal had been issued by an immigration judge” against Garcés Pérez, who was registered with the car, according to the affidavit.
After Garcés Pérez returned to his car and started driving, D.F. “activated his emergency lights” but Garcés Pérez “did not pull over and stop his car immediately,” according to the document.
Garcés Pérez pulled over to the shoulder of the road, and L.G.’s unmarked ICE SUV parked diagonally in front of him.
L.G. then approached the driver’s side door near the sideview mirror and D.F. stood beside him.
Garcés Pérez “rolled down his window slightly” as they spoke, and he provided his driver’s license, the filing says. After the officers asked him to step out of the car, Garcés Pérez “ignored the request” and “engaged in a Spanish conversation with L.G. about moving the car and parking it,” the document says.
“The conversational tone was pleasant and not aggressive,” according to the affidavit.
One minute later, Garcés Pérez “abruptly closed the window and drove off,” the filing states.
Officer L.G. “tried to avoid contact with the car” but the “driver’s side-view mirror struck L.G. in his torso as it drove off,” according to the Justice Department.
Garcés Pérez has said that he asked to move his car so that his wife could collect it.
He told reporters last week that he initially believed an unmarked SUV was trying to hit his car, and he continued along his delivery route to avoid what he thought was an aggressive driver.
