A Texas grand jury on Friday indicted ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for driving a vehicle into Miguel Parra Hernandez, who was walking earlier this month, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said Friday.
A Harris County grand jury handed up an indictment against 33-year-old Morales on Friday morning.
This is the first indictment against a Texas immigration agent. ICE enforcement officer Christian Castro was charged in the January shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in Minnesota.
“The evidence we have in this case is as clear as anything I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teale said at a news conference Friday.
During the news conference, Thiel played an officer’s body camera video, which showed the officer jerking the steering wheel to the left and a wailing sound immediately heard seconds later.
Parra fell to the ground, his face on the pavement, and officers rolled him over. “You ran over me,” Parra shouted.
The video shows the officer standing over Parra, who is still crying in pain. “Bro, you got hit by a car,” the officer told him. The officer rolled him over and tried to lift Parra off his shoulders, but Parra cried louder.
“As I was coming in, I hit him with the car,” the officer said, suggesting trying to put Parra in the car.
“The ICE badge does not give you the right to harm, kill or violate anyone’s constitutional rights,” Thiel said.
The Oct. 10 accident left Parra with injuries to her hips, legs and ankles, including a broken leg, according to her family and representatives. Thiel said Parra is currently in a rehabilitation center under ICE supervision.
ICE said in a statement after the collision that Parra “ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.” The agent was driving an SUV.
But after reviewing video that investigators collected at his office from local businesses and bystanders, Thiel accused agents of intentionally running over Parra. ICE has previously said the allegation that its agents intentionally attacked Parra was “Reckless” and “false.”
An ICE spokesperson said in an emailed statement shortly after the indictments were made public that the indictments were “nothing more than a political stunt by Houston shelter politicians.”
The spokesman said only federal agencies can investigate “federal officials acting in the course of their duties,” and local governments do not have the authority to conduct such investigations.
Thiel, a Democrat, told a news conference that the suggestion they couldn’t investigate was “false.”
ice reiterate their point of view That Allegations that ICE officers intentionally assaulted Miguel Parra-Hernandez are “reckless” and “false.”
A senior DHS official told NBC News earlier this month that the department placed an official on administrative leave following the collision.
Security video of the incident obtained by NBC affiliate KPRC Houston shows a white truck facing the opposite direction of traffic on the busy road. The video shows Parra and another man getting out of the white truck and running away.
The video shows that around the same time, another car jumped over the yellow barrier and headed in the direction of Parra. The video then shows the unmarked vehicle turning left onto Parra’s path in front of a truck parked at the mall.
The video shows a man lying on the sidewalk behind the ICE vehicle as the parked truck pulls away.
Till, who served for several years as chief of Harris County’s vehicle crimes unit, previously told NBC News that he had sought critical data from the crashed vehicle, but ICE removed the vehicle from the scene.
Parra’s lawyer told NBC News that Parra arrived in the United States at the age of 14, has lived in the United States for 34 years, and has no criminal record. He was doing plaster work when he was hit, according to an advocate. The Department of Homeland Security said he entered the country without legal permission.
ICE said it was conducting a targeted enforcement operation to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes and not to target Parra or another man who was in the truck with Mendoza-Cervantes before fleeing on foot.
But Mendoza-Cervantes’ daughter told FIEL of Houston, an immigrant rights group, and Parra’s attorney, Kim Bruno, that her father had been dead since 2017.