Texas ICE Agent Indicted in Houston Vehicle Strike Case

A grand jury on Friday indicted Mario Alberto Morales, 33, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that enforces immigration law, on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The charge is a more serious form of assault, and the case stems from an incident in Houston in October.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced the charge at a news conference in Houston. A grand jury is a panel of residents that decides whether there is enough evidence for a case to go forward, and the indictment was returned on Friday morning, according to The Guardian.

The incident took place on October 10. Morales was driving an unmarked Jeep Cherokee and was trying to stop a pickup truck carrying two men, who jumped out and fled. He is accused of deliberately veering his SUV into Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48.

Parra Hernandez is a Mexican construction worker with no criminal record and no active deportation order. He suffered multiple leg fractures and a hip injury. Surveillance video showed him running across a restaurant parking lot when the pursuing SUV swerved into him and ran him over, according to The Guardian. An AP report published in mid-October said Parra Hernandez remains in the United States.

Morales's own account differs from the video. In a 911 call, he told the dispatcher that Parra Hernandez ran in front of his vehicle and was hit. An official ICE account released the day after the incident repeated that assertion, The Guardian reported.

At the time of the strike, the SUV also held two handcuffed detainees from a previous, unrelated operation.

The Harris County district attorney's office is also investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE in Houston in July.