HOUSTON — Videos collected by local investigators show “pretty obvious” that an ICE agent intentionally ran over Miguel Parra Hernandez during an immigration checkpoint Saturday, which could lead to assault charges, the prosecutor said Tuesday.
“This is an intentional hit and run over of the person by the vehicle, and in this case it is an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas,” Harris County Prosecutor Sean Teare told NBC News.
Teare said the federal government is not cooperating with the investigation by his office and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. He also said ICE could have allowed critical data to be erased in the vehicle involved in the attack on Parra, who was on foot.
Teare said that during his seven years as chief of the Harris County Vehicle Crimes Division, he has reviewed videos of a number of other car-pedestrian collision cases. He said the video his investigators collected in Parra’s case “goes above and beyond” the video that was posted online and obtained by NBC affiliate KPRC in Houston.
“It’s pretty obvious from what I’ve seen, as well as many other investigators who have seen it, that this was an intentional hit and run over of the person by the vehicle, and in this case it’s an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Texas,” he said.
Parra, 48, suffers multiple fractures and fractures in his body, according to his attorney and an attorney who spoke on his behalf. He underwent surgery on one leg and faces several additional operations, said Cesar Espinosa, co-founder and executive director of FIEL, an immigrant civil rights group.
Video obtained by KPRC shows a white truck heading in the opposite direction of traffic on a busy road. It shows a vehicle crossing a yellow median and heading in the direction indicated by Parra. is running.
It then appears to show the vehicle, unmarked, swerving to the left towards Chemin de Parra, in front of a truck stopped in a shopping center. The parked truck leaves and a man can be seen on the sidewalk behind the ICE vehicle, the video shows.
An ICE spokesperson said over the weekend that officers were pursuing the fleeing men and that “Miguel Parra Hernandez ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck.”
Teare, a Democrat, announced Monday evening that his office had launched an independent investigation.
On Tuesday, an ICE spokesperson, who was not identified, said in a statement that “allegations that ICE intentionally struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez are COMPELLATORY and FALSE. The men and women of ICE are responsible for upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity and ethical conduct.”
ICE said the allegations are “disgusting smears” that are “peddled by the media,” leading to a more than 1,600 percent increase in assaults and a 3,300 percent increase in vehicular attacks against its law enforcement officers. He did not provide data behind these figures.
ICE said Parra was not the target of the attempted stop but was in the country illegally. Parra’s attorney and family said he had no criminal record and went to work to apply stucco.
Teare said his and the sheriff’s office determined the vehicle that struck Parra was a Jeep Cherokee and potentially had evidence, including a data recorder. He said his office wants to know if the vehicle recorded any information at the time of the collision that could be uploaded, such as speed, direction and braking. Teare said the way to preserve the car’s data would have been to “put it on a flatbed trailer and take it for forensic downloading.”
But he said he believes any recorder data related to the incident could have been erased when ICE drove the car.
He and sheriff’s investigators told ICE the information needed to be uploaded, but ICE refused, Teare said.
ICE did not respond to questions about a data logger, erasure of potential data or any refusal to download it.
“Our office began drafting a search warrant that we were in the process of drafting when the ICE agent in question, the one we believe was driving at the time of the collision, jumped in the car and drove it away from the scene,” Teare said. “In my 20 years of career, I have never heard of anything like this.”
Teare also said two people from a “totally different operation” were in the back seat of the ICE vehicle when it struck Parra. These two people are also in ICE custody, along with Parra. Teare said his office is working to ensure all three remain in the country as material witnesses.
“I taught for years at the Houston Police Department Academy and the Harris County Department Academy. I worked with law enforcement for 20 years. There is not a single agency in the United States that teaches that once you take people into custody in your car, then you start chasing other people,” he said.
This puts “every single person at risk again,” he said.
According to Teare, the ICE vehicle should have activated its emergency equipment, such as its lights and siren, as it crossed a central reservation and crossed into oncoming traffic.
A senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News on Tuesday that several ICE agents present at the scene at the time were wearing body cameras. ICE is currently reviewing video from the scene as part of an internal investigation, the official said.
Espinosa said Parra told him he fled because it was unclear whether there were officials in the vehicles, which he said were unmarked, did not use sirens and had dark, tinted windows.
ICE said it was targeting another man, Jose Mendoza Cervantes, who was in the country illegally and had committed several crimes. Espinoza and Parra’s attorney, Kim Bruno, said neither Parra nor the man who was with him when ICE stopped their vehicle had any connection to Mendoza.
In previous clashes between ICE and the targets of its arrests during vehicle stops, some of whom were killed, such as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, ICE claimed that the people it tried to arrest used their vehicles as weapons.
Parra was hit less than two weeks after the Trump administration issued guidelines setting stricter rules for vehicle checks.
The guidelines state that only officers with specific training should conduct vehicle stops. The memo also states that vehicles used for traffic stops must be equipped with lights and sirens and that all officers present at the scene of traffic stops must wear and activate their body cameras.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office asked witnesses and people who may have photos or videos of the incident to contact them. Teare said there is a secure portal that goes directly to the prosecutor’s office and no one is asked about citizenship or immigration status.
“All we’re interested in is getting the truth, and any cell phone footage, anyone who has seen something and can really point us in the right direction, that would be wonderful,” he said.
Gn usa
