A Venezuelan national shot by a Border Patrol agent during a “targeted vehicle stop” in Portland, Oregon, was charged Monday with aggravated assault on a federal officer.
Luis Nino-Moncada put Border Patrol agents in harm’s way last week by repeatedly striking one of their unoccupied vehicles and damaging it, according to a criminal complaint. Nino-Moncada, who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the arm and is now in custody, was also charged with damaging federal property costing more than $1,000.
“Anyone who crosses the red line of assaulting law enforcement will be met with the full force of this Justice Department,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the charges.
Nino-Moncada, also referred to by the Department of Homeland Security as Nico, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Oregon on Monday.
Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who was a passenger in Nino-Moncada’s pickup truck, has been charged with illegal entry into the United States. Zambrano-Contreras was also hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the chest after the incident.
Information about Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras’s attorneys was not immediately available. DHS has said both are undocumented Venezuelan nationals and had entered the U.S. in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
The Portland shooting is the latest flash point in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign. It occurred just one day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good in Minneapolis.
In the Portland shooting, both defendants were described as having ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though federal prosecutors did not provide documentation and The Washington Post was not able to immediately verify those claims.
Nino-Moncada repeatedly crashed into an unoccupied Border Patrol vehicle after being ordered out of his car, according to the criminal complaint. The agents were afraid Nino-Moncada might hit him, the complaint said, leading one of them to shoot at Nino-Moncada, who eventually drove away from the scene.
During an interview after the incident, the complaint states, Nino-Moncada admitted to intentionally ramming the government vehicle and said he knew the vehicle was driven by immigration officials.
There is no video footage of the incident, according to the complaint. None of the federal agents were wearing body cameras, which are not required of Customs and Border Protection personnel, and federal investigators said they were unable to find social media video or surveillance video from the area that captured the incident.
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