The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Venezuelan man in Austin over the weekend is a recruit who was issued a body camera but was not using it during the incident, according to two former Department of Homeland Security officials briefed on the matter.
The officer had previously worked at another federal law enforcement agency and joined ICE during DHS’s hiring spree last year, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
DHS has been facing mounting criticism from former officials who say the recruits were put on the streets before being adequately vetted and trained. In recent months, the agency has begun quietly firing some of the recruits over poor performance or red flags that some former officials said should have been identified earlier.
ICE acting director David Venturella said over the summer that the cameras would be disseminated to every officer by the end of August following the deaths of two immigrants shot by officers who did not have cameras recording when they fired their weapons. One of those officers was a recruit who had a volatile history, according to relatives and court records.
An agency spokesman told The Washington Post in late August that DHS had enough body cameras to equip all ICE officers nationwide. But in early September, Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin said at a news conference that the cameras had not yet been fully distributed and that only officers assigned to make arrestsin the field would be given the devices.
It was unclear why the officer in Sunday’s shooting did not have a body camera recording at the time of the incident. DHS did not respond to questions about the officer’s background and training, or why he wasn’t using the device while making an arrest. The Atlantic first reported that the officer was a recruit not wearing a camera.
Wilber Garcés Pérez, 28, a DoorDash delivery driver, was shot after ICE officers attempted to make a traffic stop on Sunday. The officers were in an unmarked black SUV, and Garcés said at a news conference Monday he did not initially think they were law enforcement. His attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said ICE sideswiped his car and struck Garcés again as he attempted to make a U-turn to find a place to pull over.
Video captured by a bystander shows an officer exiting the SUV and approaching Garcés’s vehicle before shots are fired.
DHS issued a statement Tuesday characterizing the shooting as a result of a “dangerous attempt to evade arrest.”
“Resisting officers and evading arrest is dangerous for our officers, illegal aliens, and the public,” the agency said. “We remind the public that resisting officers and evading arrest is a felony and a federal crime.”
The lack of body-camera footage from the officer who fired could mean that once again there is limited video available to determine how the events unfolded before someone was shot. In several shootings involving federal immigration agents, bystander footage has raised questions about the department’s official narrative. The Justice Department has taken few visible steps to investigate the dozens of documented shootings involved in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Democrats, immigrant advocates and attorneys have implored ICE to use the cameras more widely, and Mullin has expressed his support for the program. “It’s for our safety and the public’s safety, too,” he said recently. The news that the ICE officer in Austin was not using his camera struck immediate outrage from people who said the agency’s account cannot be trusted.
“You need to answer why your agents are not turning their body cams on,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said Tuesday in a tweet directed at Mullin.
ICE sent an email to all officers Tuesday reminding them that they “must activate” their cameras “to capture footage of Enforcement Activities.” The note instructed officers to turn on the cameras at the start of an enforcement activity, such as before a traffic stop, or if that is not possible, quickly afterward. Officers who violate the policy must provide a written report explaining why.
Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi L. Noem, said that ICE would issue body cameras to the agency’s 22,000 officers and agents after the January shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
But ICE and DHS have differed on the agency’s timeline for rolling out the camera program, which the White House initially sought to decimate, even as shooting incidents have continued to rise.
In July, ICE officers shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national and longtime resident in Houston. Days later, another ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant in Maine. In both incidents, officers fired at driversin their vehicles.
ICE temporarily instructed officers to refrain from making traffic-stop arrests in most cases after the shooting in Maine, but the pause was quickly liftedafter President Donald Trump touted the controversial tactic as an essential enforcement tool.
Garcés was initially transferred from the scene to a hospital. But his attorney said ICE took him into custody four hours later and put him in detention despite having a bullet still lodged in his back. Lincoln-Goldfinch said doctors chose not to remove it because the bullet was too close to his spine, but that his clavicle is fractured and he requires further evaluation. She said it was reckless to remove him from the hospital that quickly.
Garcés told reporters on Monday by cellphone that he remained in pain and had spent the night sleeping on the floor of the detention center in Pearsall, Texas. Lincoln-Goldfinch later said on social media that Garcés was taken to another hospital late Monday after complaining of paralysis on his left side.
“We still do not have clarity about the cause or extent of the loss of movement he experienced,” she wrote.
Garcés entered the country legally seeking asylum, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. An immigration judge issued him a final removal order after he missed a hearing. Lincoln-Goldfinch said officials sent a notice advising him of his upcoming court date to an old address.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garcés is the main provider for his family. He has a young son with a disability and is responsible for the costs of his treatments.
DHS said in a statement Tuesday that officers targeted Garcés because he is in the United States illegally. Mullin’s office said Garcés’s work permit expired last year. DHS disputed claims that Garces has received inadequate medical care and said he is receiving pain medication “around the clock.”
The agency said it is “false” that he was forced to sleep on the floor after being discharged and said he was given a bed.
“This person is an illegal alien who has no legal status to be here and has been given some of the best medical care he’s ever received in his life,” Mullin said.
His attorney filed a lawsuit in Texas asking a federal court to release Garcés and halt his potential deportation to Venezuela. U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia scheduled an in-person hearing for Sept. 30 and ordered that Garcés be present, according to court records.
Joyce Sohyun Lee contributed to this report.
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