Austin ICE Shooting: Surgery After 11 Days Raises Questions on Evidence and Care
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan delivery driver, had surgery on Thursday to remove a bullet lodged in his back for almost two weeks after he was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin. The bullet was successfully removed. He is recovering in the custody of the US Marshals. The Guardian
Garcés Pérez was stopped on 20 September while driving a DoorDash delivery. He was facing deportation at the time. What happened during the stop is disputed.
Authorities said he struck an officer with his side mirror while trying to drive away after a traffic stop. Garcés Pérez said he was struck by a law enforcement SUV and his car spun around before he was shot. Federal officers told investigators he attempted to strike an officer with his car at the end of a chase before the officer fired. The officer who fired was not wearing a body camera. Bystander footage captured part of the incident, including ICE officers calling an ambulance and local police giving first aid on arrival.
After the shooting, Garcés Pérez was taken to a hospital in Austin in serious but stable condition. He was then taken from the hospital to a detention facility about 140 miles away the same day. Supporters said he risked losing feeling on the left side of his body because the bullet was stuck close to his spine. He appeared in court in a wheelchair on Wednesday wearing a sling on his arm. Earlier accounts said he had been discharged after four hours into ICE custody, was back in a federal detention center after a second hospital release, and still had a bullet lodged in his back with surgery pending. Texas Tribune
Garcés Pérez remains in custody on a charge that he assaulted an officer while trying to evade arrest. The Justice Department charge is assaulting, resisting, interfering with and impeding a federal officer. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Reuters
He legally entered the United States in 2024 via the CBP One app, a government system for scheduling legal entry, and applied for asylum, a legal protection for people who say they face persecution at home. Texas Tribune Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz is a spokesperson for his legal team. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch is his lawyer. Protesters gathered in Austin after the shooting.
The broader context here is a collision of enforcement, evidence and detention medicine. With no body-camera video, the record turns on competing accounts, partial bystander footage, and the post-shooting investigation, like trying to reconstruct a car crash from only one angle. The rapid transfer from hospital to a distant detention facility, followed by an 11-day interval with a bullet near the spine, raises questions about continuity of care and judicial oversight of medical need. At the same time, the criminal assault allegation creates a parallel track to immigration enforcement, with two cases moving at once. A conviction could carry a lengthy federal sentence independent of deportation proceedings. Acquittal would not resolve immigration status. The next phases to watch are pretrial detention decisions, disclosure of investigative findings on the shooting, and how courts handle medical evidence from the period between the shooting and surgery.
