Mario Alberto Morales, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Houston. A grand jury indicted him on Friday, according to reports. His attorney, David Lindenmuth, told The Associated Press that Morales plans to turn himself in at a courthouse on Monday.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said that on Oct. 10, Morales struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, with an unmarked SUV as Parra Hernandez ran through a parking lot. Teare said Parra Hernandez broke his leg and is recovering at a rehabilitation facility in federal custody. Surveillance video released earlier shows the vehicle drive over a median and strike Parra Hernandez.
Lindenmuth has said the incident was "clearly just an accident" and that local officials had "invented a crime." A Harris County Sheriff's Office incident report, reviewed by the AP, says Morales told deputies he did not brake before the collision but did not intentionally hit Parra Hernandez. The report says Parra Hernandez told deputies he fled a traffic stop when Morales began putting on a mask.
ICE said the target of the operation was a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes. Mendoza-Cervantes' daughter told the immigrants' rights group FIEL that her father has been dead for nearly a decade. According to Lindenmuth, Morales has worked as an ICE agent for a little over a year.