The family of a Los Angeles man who was shot and killed by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on New Year’s Eve is asking for the case to be brought before a grand jury.
After a meeting with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman on Monday afternoon, the family of Keith Porter Jr. said they asked the county’s top law enforcement official to leave the decision of whether the ICE agent should face criminal charges to a panel of county residents.
Porter, 43, was allegedly firing a gun into the air to celebrate the New Year in the courtyard of his Northridge apartment complex when he was confronted by his neighbor, Brian Palacios. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially described Porter as an “active shooter,” though no one else was injured that night.
Porter’s relatives and their attorney, Jamal Tooson, have repeatedly said Porter was no threat to anyone. Police said they recovered a rifle from the scene after Porter was killed. 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, supporting claims that Porter had fired at him.
Tooson has claimed a neighbor’s Ring camera captured audio evidence from the shooting. The recording will show Palacios did not identify himself as law enforcement, according to Tooson.
Tooson said Monday he believed that presenting the case to a grand jury “would be the best path, moving forward, toward getting justice.” He told reporters that Hochman offered no timetable for a decision on charging Palacios during the meeting, saying he was still in the early stages of his review of the Dec. 31, 2025 incident.
Normally, cases where police seriously injure or kill people are presented for review to the Justice Systems Integrity Division inside the D.A.’s office, which then decides if charges are warranted. If prosecutors were to present the case to a grand jury, a prosecutor would still have to believe there was probable cause a crime was committed before arguing for an indictment.
In a statement, the district attorney’s office didn’t rule out the unorthodox move and called on more witnesses in the case to come forward.
“We understand how difficult this has been for Keith Porter’s family. While we typically don’t meet with families this early in an investigation, given the high-profile nature of this case and at the request of the attorneys representing Mr. Porter’s family, we made it a priority to connect,” the statement read. “We will continue our meticulous review of the evidence, the facts, and the law to reach a final determination.”
Tooson said there are no eyewitnesses to the shooting and Porter’s death was not captured on video.
Porter was one of several U.S. citizens killed by ICE agents in the past year. The other shootings, which occurred while the officers were on duty, have sparked growing backlash and concerns about the agency’s willingness to use deadly force while enforcing President Trump’s immigration policies.
Two months before Porter’s death, an ICE agent claimed he was afraid for his life when he opened fire on a popular TikTok streamer in South L.A. and accidentally injured a U.S. Marshal in the process. Assault charges against the streamer were later dismissed by a judge.
Within weeks of Porter’s death, ICE agents gunned down Renee Good and Alex Pretti in confrontations in Minneapolis, with both slayings drawing national outrage.
The Times identified Palacios as Porter’s killer earlier this year. Court records show he’d been previously accused of child abuse and making racist remarks. His attorney, Stacie Halpern, has denied her client made any improper remarks and said the child abuse allegations were deemed unfounded by both the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services and police.
Palacios was also accused of threatening a man with criminal charges in May whom he erroneously believed leaked his name to the press. Records show an attempt to gain a restraining order over the alleged threats ultimately failed.
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