Federal Agent Indicted After SUV Strikes Man Fleeing Houston Parking Lot

An ICE officer who struck a man with his unmarked SUV during a foot chase in Houston faces a felony charge and plans to surrender Monday. Mario Alberto Morales' attorney, David Lindenmuth, said that his client will turn himself in at a courthouse sometime that day.

A Harris County grand jury indicted Morales on Friday on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The charge stems from Oct. 10, when Morales pursued Miguel Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, through a parking lot and hit him with the vehicle. Parra Hernandez broke his leg and is recovering at a rehabilitation facility while in federal custody, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told reporters Friday.

Surveillance camera footage shows Morales' vehicle crossing a median and striking Parra Hernandez as he runs. Teare also played body camera video Friday that showed Morales making sharp turns at the wheel before stopping, getting out, and walking toward Parra Hernandez, who was on the ground screaming. "I was coming in, and I hit him with the car," Morales said in the recording after another ICE agent arrived.

Parra Hernandez told deputies he ran from the traffic stop after Morales began pulling on a mask, and that Morales "threw the car" at him, according to a Harris County Sheriff's Office incident report reviewed by the Associated Press. Morales told deputies he did not brake before the impact but did not intentionally hit Parra Hernandez, the report states. ICE has said Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle.

ICE said the operation targeted a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom the agency reported was seen getting into a car with Parra Hernandez. Mendoza-Cervantes' daughter told the immigrants' rights group FIEL that her father has been dead for nearly a decade.

Morales, 34, has served as an ICE agent for a little over a year, Lindenmuth said. He previously called the incident "clearly just an accident" and said local officials had "invented a crime out of thin air." Teare told reporters Friday that authorities have a "significant amount of information" on Morales.

Court records show Morales was charged with a misdemeanor in 2013 for stealing four DVDs. Those charges were dismissed after he paid a $270 fine and entered a plea deal. He also ran unsuccessfully for Texas' 34th Congressional District under the name "Bam Morales" in this year's election cycle.

Morales is among a small number of federal agents criminally charged for injuring people during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. ICE agent Christian Castro pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he lied to the FBI after shooting and wounding a Venezuelan man during an operation in Minneapolis earlier this year. Many other ICE shootings, including some that were fatal, have not resulted in charges against the agents involved.