Austin ICE shooting: assault charge, conflicting accounts and missing camera footage

A federal charge adds allegations, not a verdict

The Justice Department filed an assault charge on September 29 against Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan man shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin nine days earlier. The Washington Post reported that an unsealed affidavit alleges Garcés Pérez struck an officer’s torso with his car’s side-view mirror while leaving a traffic stop and then led a high-speed pursuit. [1][2][3]

A criminal complaint and supporting affidavit state the government’s allegations; they are not findings of guilt. A September 30 detention hearing tested whether Garcés Pérez should remain in custody, not whether he committed the charged offense. The reviewed sources do not report a plea or a trial verdict. [1][6][9]

The affidavit says the officer fired through a rear window

According to the Post’s account of the affidavit, the ICE officer identified as L.G. shot Garcés Pérez in the upper back through the car’s rear-right window. That description establishes the government’s account of where the officer fired; it does not by itself resolve whether the use of force was legally justified at that moment. [1]

Garcés Pérez previously said officers in unmarked vehicles sideswiped his car, did not initially identify themselves and shot him while he was trying to stop somewhere safer. His lawyers told the Texas Tribune he had been making a DoorDash delivery. Those are the driver’s and lawyers’ accounts and remain disputed by the new federal allegations. [2][3]

The agents’ cameras did not record the shooting

The affidavit says L.G. was not wearing a body camera. A second officer wore one but turned it off during the vehicle pursuit, according to the Post. No reviewed source provided agent-recorded video of the shooting itself. [1]

Austin police body-camera footage recorded the aftermath. Reuters reported that it showed Garcés Pérez inside his car, complaining of shoulder pain, before officers cut away his shirt and documented a gunshot wound to his upper back. The video supports the location of the wound and his presence in the vehicle after the shooting, but it does not show the preceding contact, pursuit or gunfire. [3]

The judge ordered custody as a flight risk, not as a danger finding

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell ordered Garcés Pérez held in federal criminal custody while the case proceeds. KUT reported that Howell agreed with prosecutors that he presented a flight risk but did not accept their argument that he was a danger to the community. The order is a pretrial custody decision, not a conviction or a finding that the ICE shooting was justified. [7][6][8]

AP reported that prosecutors played body-camera footage showing Garcés Pérez hand over his license, ask in Spanish to park so a relative could retrieve the car and then drive away rapidly. A nearby business camera showed part of the pursuit. The defense argued the footage was inconclusive, and the federal investigator could not confirm whether the car mirror struck the officer because the investigator had not interviewed that officer directly. [6][9]

Garcés Pérez appeared in a wheelchair with the bullet still lodged in his back. His lawyers say he faces sepsis and permanent loss of mobility without surgery; El País reported that he had seen doctors three times and that one specialist warned of lasting mobility damage. Those are medical and legal-team accounts, not a publicly reviewed diagnosis or court finding. KUT reported that he will remain in federal custody rather than return to the ICE facility in Pearsall. [6][7][8]

Medical care, removal proceedings and investigations

Garcés Pérez was hospitalized and transferred to an ICE detention center with the bullet still lodged near his spine. He and his lawyer alleged inadequate initial care and later reported partial paralysis; the Department of Homeland Security denied that he was forced to sleep on the floor and said he received pain medication and treatment. Reuters reported both positions. [3]

His lawyer says he entered through the CBP One process, received work authorization and missed an immigration hearing because notice went to an old address. DHS confirmed the removal order was entered in absentia but disputed the implication that an address problem excused the missed proceeding. A federal judge temporarily blocked removal and ordered Garcés Pérez to appear at a September 30 hearing, according to the Wall Street Journal and KUT. [2][4][5]

Local and federal investigations were still pending. The charging affidavit supplies an official allegation about the vehicle contact, but the missing camera record and competing accounts mean the legality of the shooting remains unresolved. [1][2][3]

How the sources compare