A food bank worker shot from behind by an ICE agent last month pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to assault on a federal officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Carlos Jimenez, a father of three, was indicted by a federal grand jury last week after prosecutors accused him of trying to “reverse” his car into a Border Patrol agent conducting an early morning Oct. 30 immigration stop near the Ontario mobile home park where he lives.
An accompanying ICE agent, according to a complaint filed shortly after the incident, had ordered him to leave and pulled out a gun and pepper spray.
Attorneys representing Jimenez said he was just trying to leave. Lawyers Cynthia Santiago and Robert Simon said Jimenez had stopped to warn the agents that a group of school age children would soon be coming. Jimenez reversed because he was afraid, they contend, and then was unnecessarily shot in the back of his right shoulder, where a bullet remains lodged.
Jimenez – who has been free on a $10,000 bond — appeared with his right hand in a sling at a federal court in Riverside on Tuesday. His brothers and wife, clasping hands, sat in the first row watching.
Judge Sheri Pym set a jury trail for Jan. 12.
Neither he nor his public defender, Ayah Sarsour, would comment after, but in the hallways, he could be heard talking to his family about how nervous he was in court.
The Jimenez shooting was the second one in a little more than a week last month as enforcement operations unfolded across the state.
In Los Angeles on Oct. 21, ICE agents shot into a car, striking Carlitos Ricardo Parias in the elbow, and hitting a deputy marshal with what authorities said was a ricocheted bullet. Prosecutors have accused Parias of trying to ram agents’ cars. He has plead not guilty to assault charges last week.
Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in Chicago moved to drop charges against a Marimar Martinez, who was shot several times by a border patrol agent after she and Anthony Ruiz were alleged to have used their vehicle to strike and box in agents.
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