Leaving his home in Ontario to work at a food bank Thursday morning, Carlos Jimenez pulled over to warn a group of federal agents that they should wrap up their stop of a car quickly because school-age children would soon gather there to take the bus, his lawyers said Sunday.
In the following moments, the attorneys said an ICE officer shot Jimenez, a U.S. citizen and father-of-three, from behind.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said at the time Jimenez had “attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping” and the shots were “defensive.”
Jimenez, 25, was charged in federal court on assault on a federal officer. A judge released him on bond Friday.
Lawyers for Jimenez offered a counter narrative saying Jimenez reversed because he was afraid then unnecessarily shot in the back of his right shoulder where a bullet remains lodged. The agents actions were “unreasonably aggressive” and a violation of their own policies, said his lawyer Robert Simon.
Jimenez, who lives in the mobile home park along the same road, approached the officers to “tell them that there’s kids that are coming out to wait for the bus,” according to his lawyers.
“He was telling them, ‘Excuse me. Can you guys please, you know, please wrap this up. And immediately, the masked agent pulls out a gun and exchanges some words,” said lawyer Cynthia Santiago. “(The agent is) also shaking his pepper spray.”
“He’s in fear, and he’s trying to get out of the situation,” she said. The agents and their cars had blocked one southern lane on Vineyard Avenue and jutted into a second.
“He had to reverse to get away,” said Simon.
“Then there was a shot from the side, back passenger window, to the car,” Santiago said. “Use of deadly force is to be used as a last resort. Coming out to communities with guns drawn is the opposite.”
So far, no video of the incident has publicly surfaced.
Federal authorities have painted a different picture of what happened. According to the complaint filed in the Central District of California on Friday, Jimenez pulled up to three immigration officers, two from border patrol and another form ICE and “engaged in a verbal altercation,” it states.
An ICE agent, identified as E.O., told approached Jimenez’ in his Lexus and told him to leave. Then the agent “holstered” his fire arm and pulled out his pepper spray, according to the complaint. Jimenez pulled his car forward to the left.
“The Lexus then stopped, turned its wheels, and then rapidly accelerated in reverse back toward” a border patrol agent named in the complaint as “Officer N.J.” and the Honda the agents had stopped, which had three people inside.
Immigration agents have been increasingly involved in aggressive confrontations with suspects and protesters.
McLaughlin called it at the time “another example of the threats our ICE officers are facing day in and day out as they risk their lives to enforce the law and arrest criminals.”
But advocates and lawyers say that heavy-handed tactics are spawning dangerous situations in neighborhoods.
“Our communities are not training grounds, they are places where children and families should be safe and able to go about their day,” said Santiago. “What we are seeing in communities such as IE, LA and Ventura is as if they are training grounds, where violence and aggression is being used against community members with or without status.”
The shooting is the second in a little over a week in Southern California. Last week, ICE officers fired at a man in South Los Angeles after agents boxed his car in. Carlitos Ricardo Parias, was shot in the elbow, and a deputy marshal was hit by what authorities said was a ricocheted bullet. They accused Parias of trying to ram the agents’ cars.
In September and October, there were two shootings, by ICE and Border Patrol, into vehicles in Chicago, one fatal. And in August, federal agents shot into a car in San Bernardino during an immigration stop.
Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.
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