Facts
- An ICE officer has been charged with second-degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after a car struck a man in Houston on October 10, 2026, according to the Associated Press via PBS NewsHour. The Harris County District Attorney’s office, led by Democrat Sean Teare, announced the charge on Friday, October 30.
- Prosecutors identified the officer as Mario Alberto Morales, who was driving an unmarked black vehicle. The vehicle struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, a Mexican construction worker who was running away. He was later taken into custody with a broken leg.
- Teare said video contradicts ICE’s account. He said surveillance footage shows the vehicle speeding over a median toward Parra Hernandez. He said Morales’s body camera footage includes Morales saying, ‘I was coming in and I hit him with the car.’ Teare also said DHS did not cooperate with investigators, and accused ICE of destroying evidence ‘either intentionally or through gross negligence.’
- ICE says Parra Hernandez stepped in front of the car and calls the allegation of an intentional strike false and ‘reckless.’ ICE called the indictment ‘a political stunt’ and said local officials lack authority to investigate federal officers acting in the course of their duties.
- ICE identified another man, Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, as the operation’s target and said he was seen entering a vehicle with Parra Hernandez. Teare’s office found no evidence the two were in a vehicle together. FIEL, an immigrant rights group, says Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter told it he has been dead since 2017. ICE has not responded to that claim, and the AP did not independently verify it.
- Morales was not in custody on Friday. Teare said a warrant will be issued for his arrest and prosecutors have contacted his attorney. No defense statement was included in the report, and no court dates were listed.
- Parra Hernandez has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and, according to FIEL, was living there without authorization. FIEL, working with his family, hopes the indictment will help secure his release from custody, said executive director Cesar Espinosa.
- Teare is also investigating the July fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, by an ICE officer in his van. DHS says Salgado Araujo ‘weaponized his vehicle,’ and other passengers dispute that account.
Quotes
Sean Teare, Harris County district attorney, accused ICE of destroying evidence “either intentionally or through gross negligence.”
ICE called the indictment “a political stunt” and the intentional-strike allegation “reckless.”
Source Read the Associated Press report on PBS NewsHour here.
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