Federal prosecutors in Texas announced charges Tuesday against Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a Venezuelan delivery driver shot and seriously injured by an ICE agent in Austin this month. The charges were filed a day before he was due in court to challenge the legality of his immigration detention.
Garcés Pérez, 28, was charged with one count of assaulting, resisting and obstructing a federal agent, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Garcés Pérez was shot by an ICE officer in the upper back on September 20 while he was in his car making DoorDash deliveries. His lawyers say the bullet is still lodged near his spine, causing “grave danger.” A Democratic congressman who visited Garcés Perez last week said he was in a wheelchair, in pain and in need of surgery.
“We are all focused on ensuring Wilber does not die in custody,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit legal organization, which is part of Garcés Perez’s legal team.
Garcés Pérez had his first appearance in federal court Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said in a statement.
The criminal complaint accuses Garcés Pérez of hitting an ICE agent’s chest with his car’s rearview mirror as he tried to drive away. That officer was not wearing a body camera at the time of the encounter, as the Department of Homeland Security previously stated, but the complaint includes footage appearing to capture that moment from the body camera of a second ICE officer who was also present. What followed was “a high-speed chase through a commercial and residential area,” the complaint states.
The court appearance Tuesday following the criminal complaint took Garcés Pérez’s legal team “as a surprise,” they said in a statement.
“His lawyers only became aware of this appearance because of a meeting scheduled with him this morning, during which he did not appear,” their press release indicates. “This morning, when his attorneys were finally able to see him, he was in severe pain, dizzy, and in need of painkillers, which had not been provided. Rather than providing him with the medical care he needs, DHS and the government are playing with his life.”
Garcés Pérez was transferred out of a facility in San Antonio, where he was in custody for nine days, and placed in federal criminal custody at a facility near Austin, according to Garza.
“It created a network of detention for him,” she said of Garcés Pérez’s transfer.
According to the complaint, after the pursuit began, the ICE agent wearing his body camera — identified in the complaint by the initials DF — lost sight of Garcés Pérez and the other ICE agent, who was not wearing his body camera and is identified in the complaint by the initials LG.
The ICE officer who was not wearing his body camera finally called his colleague. “LG told DF that Garcs tried to hit LG with his car and LG fired his gun,” the complaint states. The complaint provides no visual evidence of this interaction.
The complaint also includes the account of events provided by Garcés Pérez to federal investigators. He said an SUV owned by one of the ICE agents hit his “car and caused him to spin” after a short chase, the complaint states. “After a forced stop, Garces recalled that LG fired his pistol into the right rear window of Garces’ car. Garces was struck by a bullet in the upper back.”
In contrast, U.S. Attorney Simmons said in a statement that Garcés Pérez attempted to hit a police officer with his car, “which caused the officer to fire his pistol.”
The hearing scheduled for Wednesday in the lawsuit filed by Garcés Pérez to challenge his detention was canceled.
Last Tuesday, a federal judge granted an emergency order temporarily blocking the deportation proceedings against Garcés Pérez, according to one of his lawyers, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
“We’re still fighting to make sure the government doesn’t hold him in immigration custody as a result of everything that’s happening on the criminal side,” Garza said.
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