Harris County Grand Jury Indicts ICE Officer Mario Alberto Morales Over Houston Vehicle Strike

A Harris County grand jury indicted a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Friday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said, over an October 10 incident in Houston in which the officer struck a man with his vehicle during an enforcement operation.

The officer, Mario Alberto Morales, 33, of Brownsville, Texas, was driving an unmarked SUV when he struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, who was running away through a parking lot, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said. Parra Hernandez broke his leg and remains in federal custody at a rehabilitation facility, District Attorney Sean Teare said.

Video shown at a news conference

Teare said video contradicts ICE’s account that Parra Hernandez ran in front of the vehicle. Surveillance video shows a Jeep Cherokee speed over a median and drive toward Parra Hernandez as he runs away, according to CNN’s account of the footage. At a Friday news conference, Teare played Morales’s body camera footage, which shows him driving, making sharp moves with the steering wheel, and then stopping near Parra Hernandez on the ground. Morales is heard saying, “I was coming in and I hit him with the car.”

“The evidence we have in this case is as clear as any that I’ve ever prosecuted or investigated,” Teare said.

Both sides dispute what happened

Morales’s attorney, David Lindenmuth, said his client did not commit a crime and accused Teare of indicting Morales “for political gain.” He told The Associated Press the collision was an accident, saying the district attorney’s office “has invented a crime out of thin air.”

ICE said local officials do not have the authority to investigate federal officers acting in the course of their duties, and said in a statement: “Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are RECKLESS and FALSE.”

Morales, charged with a second-degree felony, was not in custody Friday, and a warrant will be issued for his arrest, according to Teare.

Teare also said Parra Hernandez has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years and did not have a deportation order or criminal background. After the incident, ICE released a photo of another man, Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, and said he was the target that day. Family members of Parra Hernandez said they had never heard of him, and an immigrant rights group in Houston said Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter told them her father has been dead since 2017. ICE has not responded to claims that the suspect it was looking for has been dead for years, according to CNN.

Teare has said the Department of Homeland Security has not cooperated with his investigators and accused ICE of destroying evidence “either intentionally or through gross negligence.” He has said Morales left the scene before the vehicle could be impounded. Teare’s office is also investigating a July fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE officer in Houston.

Reporting based on coverage by CNN and Reuters.