A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot and killed a Los Angeles man on New Year’s Eveallegedly threatened his girlfriend’s ex-husband with criminal prosecution over his name being made public, according to a restraining order application and an audio recording reviewed by The Times.
The ICE agent, Brian Palacios, was first identified by The Times in January as being responsible for the killing based off court filings in a custody dispute. Palacios was off duty when he shot Keith Porter Jr. in a Northridge apartment complex. The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Police said a rifle was recovered from Porter on the night he was killed. Some of Porter’s friends have suggested he was shooting the weapon into the air to celebrate the new year. Federal authorities said in the immediate aftermath of the incident that the ICE agent was responding to a suspected “active shooter” when he opened fire. Palacios’ attorney has said he acted in self-defense.
On May 21, Omar Escorcia, the ex-husband of Palacios’ girlfriend, filed a petition that sought to bar Palacios from being around two children with whom he had shared custody. Escorcia alleged in the restraining order petition that Palacios’ involvement in the shooting made him too dangerous to be around the kids.
A judge granted the order on a temporary basis on May 22, according to Escorcia’s attorney, Michelle E. Diaz.
Palacios’ attorney, Stacie Halpern, said Tuesday she could not immediately comment on the allegations in the restraining order. ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the restraining order application, Palacios contacted Escorcia by phone on April 30 and told him ICE was starting a criminal investigation against him.
“At this point, my agency’s going to go after you for conspiracy for what you did. You put my life at risk by putting my name out there,” Palacios said, according to a transcript of the phone call included in the restraining order application.
Palacios told Escorcia that agents would come to his house for an interview, according to the restraining order application, and implied they might conduct immigration enforcement at Escorcia’s home.
“Make sure no one’s there that doesn’t have papers. Okay?” Palacios added at the end of the minute-long conversation, according to the call transcript.
The Times reviewed a recording of the conversation that matches the transcript contained in Escorcia’s petition.
According to the call transcript, Palacios accused Escorcia of leaking his name to organizers with the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, which has called for Palacios to be prosecuted for shooting Porter.
Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter L.A., said this week that her organization has had no contact with Escorcia and didn’t know Palacios’ name until after The Times identified him.
Diaz said she did not believe her client leaked the agent’s name to anyone. The April 30 phone call “came out of nowhere,” according to Diaz, who said Palacios initiated contact with her client.
“Knowing that an armed federal ICE agent has a personal vendetta against me, that he is using his position with the federal government to harass and threaten me, and that he has no remorse for murdering another man, causes me genuine fear,” Escorcia wrote in his restraining order petition, referring to Palacios’ comments as “threats.”
Porter’s death has become a rallying point for Los Angeles activists, who regularly invoke his name at Police Commission meetings and protests. The L.A. County district attorney’s office will eventually decide whether criminal charges are warranted.
Jamal Tooson, an attorney for the Porter family, says he has found witnesses who say Porter appeared to be walking back to his apartment when he was shot. Tooson also said the witnesses did not hear the federal officer identify himself before firing three shots.
“This recording amplifies the lack of remorse for the killing of Keith Porter Jr.,” Tooson said, calling for the LAPD to finish its investigation.
Porter’s mother, Francello Armstrong, said that listening to the recording had stirred the same grief and anger she felt after her son was shot dead.
“He has no remorse, he has no compassion,” she said of Palacios.
Palacios’ attorney, Halpern, has said there is evidence that Porter fired at the agent first. A law enforcement official previously told The Times that detectives found evidence of two bullet impacts behind where Palacios was standing at the time of the shooting, which would support claims that he was fired upon by Porter.
Halpern has said that Palacios returned to duty within a few weeks of the shooting. The agent has since moved out of the apartment complex.
It’s unclear what criminal conduct Palacios was accusing Escorcia of committing in the phone call.
Federal officials have repeatedly complained about ICE and Border Patrol agents being “doxxed” in recent months, and in rare cases, prosecutors have filed criminal charges against activists accused of sharing personal information about immigration officers online.
Under federal law, the crime of “doxxing” requires that a victim’s name and address be made public for the purposes of threatening them or inciting violence. The mere identity of a federal agent is not, on its own, protected by law.
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