A Harris County grand jury indicted a federal immigration agent Friday after he was filmed on video running over a fleeing pedestrian during an Oct. 10 vehicle pursuit in Houston.
District Attorney Sean Teare said his office launched a criminal investigation of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after his office reviewed footage showing an unmarked patrol vehicle striking Miguel Parra-Hernandez, 48.
Teare said ICE agent Mario Alberto Morales faces a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — the agent’s vehicle.
“The evidence that we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve prosecuted or investigated,” Teare said at a news conference at the Harris County criminal courthouse.
Surveillance footage captured from a nearby business depicts two men getting out of a white pickup truck and running in different directions through a parking lot. The footage also shows that a black SUV pursued one of the men from behind as he ran from it.
“What happened next shocked our entire community,” Teare said. His office shared ICE body camera footage that showed Morales get out of his vehicle after running over the pedestrian’s legs. Parra-Hernandez was on the ground, crying out in agony.
ICE said that agents were searching for a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, who had a deportation order, and believed that man was in the same truck as Parra-Hernandez.
But Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter later told the New York Times that her father died nearly a decade ago.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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