ICE Agent Charged With Felony After Car Strikes Man in Houston Parking Lot

An ICE officer who struck a man with his SUV during an immigration operation in Houston faces a felony charge and is expected to turn himself in at a courthouse Monday, his attorney said. Mario Alberto Morales, 33, was indicted Friday by a grand jury on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The charge stems from an Oct. 10 incident in a Houston parking lot. Morales was driving an unmarked SUV when he struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, as Parra Hernandez ran across the lot. Parra Hernandez broke a leg and is recovering at a rehabilitation facility while in federal custody, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told reporters Friday.

Accounts of the encounter differ. ICE has said Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle. Surveillance video released earlier shows Morales' SUV crossing a median and hitting Parra Hernandez as he runs away. Teare also played body camera footage Friday that showed Morales turning the steering wheel sharply before stopping, exiting the vehicle 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 footage, according to Teare.

In an incident report reviewed by the Associated Press, Parra Hernandez told Harris County sheriff's deputies that he fled a traffic stop after Morales began pulling on a mask, and that Morales "threw the car" at him. Morales told deputies he did not brake before the impact but said he did not intentionally strike Parra Hernandez. David Lindenmuth, Morales' attorney, previously called the episode "clearly just an accident" and said local officials had "invented a crime out of thin air." Lindenmuth said his client will surrender Monday.

ICE said the operation targeted a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom the agency described as entering a vehicle with Parra Hernandez. A daughter of Mendoza-Cervantes told the immigrants' rights group FIEL that her father has been dead for nearly a decade. Teare said Friday that authorities have a "significant amount of information" about Morales and that, in his experience, law enforcement agencies would not hire someone with that background. He did not elaborate. Harris County court records show Morales was charged in 2013 with a misdemeanor for stealing four DVDs; the case ended after he paid a $270 fine and reached a plea deal.

Morales has served as an ICE agent for a little over a year, Lindenmuth said. He previously served in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division and later as a corrections officer and law enforcement officer candidate survey. Morales ran unsuccessfully for Texas' 34th congressional district this year under the name "Bam Morales." He listed illegal immigration among the country's greatest challenges in that survey. Morales was charged in the case alongside a small number of federal agents facing criminal counts for wounding people during immigration operations. 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 operations in Minneapolis earlier this year.