The DoorDash driver still has a bullet in his back. Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, a Venezuelan, was shot in his car by a federal immigration agent in Austin on 20 September, and on Tuesday federal prosecutors charged him with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer. He made his first appearance in federal court in Austin the same day.
The accusation is that he struck an officer with his side mirror as he tried to drive away. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
What the affidavit says
A nine-page affidavit from a Department of Homeland Security agent is the government’s fullest account so far. According to it, officers spotted Garcés Pérez’s car parked outside a restaurant with its flashers on. A database check showed the car was registered to a man with a final order of removal, so they moved to stop him.
He handed his driver’s license through a crack in the window but would not get out. He later told investigators he had asked the officers to wait until his wife could collect the car. The court papers call the exchange at first “pleasant and not aggressive”. About a minute in, the complaint says, he “abruptly” shut the window and pulled away. An officer, identified only by initials, was hit in the torso by the driver’s side mirror.
Photos from a body camera are in the filing: the officer standing in front of the mirror, then resting his hands on the hood and side of the car with the mirror at or near his abdomen, then the car leaving. No video was released, and the complaint does not say whether the officer was hurt.
The agent who fired was not wearing a camera. The second officer was, but reached the chase only after the shooting, the affidavit says.
Two versions of the stop
Garcés Pérez tells it differently. In the same affidavit he said an unmarked SUV followed him and cut him off, and that a law enforcement vehicle hit his car after a short chase and sent it spinning before an agent opened fire. US attorney Justin R Simmons said in a statement that he tried to hit an officer with his car, “causing the officer to fire his pistol”.
Austin police released video from their own officers last week. It does not show the shooting or the moment he allegedly drove at the agent.
After the shooting he was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center and released into ICE custody about three hours later, the bullet still in him. He has been held at a detention center in Pearsall. U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat, visited him and described him as in high spirits but in pain and in need of surgery. “This person needs a doctor, not a deportation or a detention center,” Casar said.
Immigration status
His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, says he came to the US legally in 2024 through the CBP One app and applied for asylum. A judge ordered him removed after he missed a hearing, she says, because the notice went to an old address. His attorneys have sued to stop his deportation, and a judge paused it temporarily last week.
The case follows a pattern. Agents have previously accused drivers of using their vehicles as weapons, and in a handful of cases body camera footage later undercut those claims. In Chicago and Minneapolis, people shot by immigration officers were charged with assault and the charges were dropped. A detention hearing on the new charge is set for Friday, 2 October.
Sources
- Venezuelan man shot by ICE agent in Texas charged with assaulting an officer
- Austin man shot by ICE agent charged with assault, resisting arrest
