An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer has been indicted by a Texas grand jury after striking a man with his vehicle in Houston earlier this month, prosecutors said.
Officer Mario Alberto Morales was driving a 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee on Oct. 10 at about 7:30 a.m. when he initiated a stop on a vehicle driven by Miguel Parra-Hernandez, a Mexican national who has been living in the United States for 30 years, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said at a news conference on Oct. 30.
Parra-Hernandez and another occupant fled on foot, and video footage showed Morales striking Parra-Hernandez with his vehicle, Teare said.
"As you can clearly see, Morales aggressively steered his vehicle into Parra-Hernandez. Not only did he hit Mr. Hernandez,
he ran over both of his legs, leaving him seriously injured and hospitalized to this day," Teare said, adding that Parra-Hernandez is recovering in a rehabilitation facility.
Morales was indicted on a count of second-degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Teare said. He could face between 2 and 20 years in prison if convicted. The officer is not yet in custody, Teare said. USA TODAY has reached out to an attorney representing Morales.
In a statement to USA TODAY, a spokesperson for ICE called the indictment a "political stunt," and said local government doesn't have the authority to investigate the case.
“Allegations that ICE struck Miguel Parra-Hernandez intentionally are RECKLESS and FALSE. The men and women of ICE are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct," the spokesperson said.
What happened in ICE crash? Video, 911 audio released
Prosecutors on Oct. 30 released footage from Morales' body camera and a surveillance video, along with audio from Morales' call to 911.
The encounter unfolded the morning of Oct. 10 along a commercial stretch of Clay Road in northwest Harris County. ICE officers had been trailing a white pickup truck and, when they moved to pull it over, two men jumped out and ran, surveillance video shows.
"What happened next shocked our entire community," Teare said.
The video shows Morales' SUV driving over a median in pursuit of a man running on foot.
"I've got a runner," he says on the body camera footage.
The SUV drives into a parking area and closes in on the man running. The view of the impact is blocked by a truck parked there. Just afterward, Parra-Hernandez can be heard moaning and is seen lying on the ground as Morales gets out of the SUV. In the 911 audio, Morales tells a dispatcher, "I tried to get around him and he hit my car."
Two men Morales had detained earlier were sitting handcuffed in the back of the Jeep, officials said. Parra Hernandez’s leg was broken in three places, and he was taken to a hospital in ICE custody.
ICE said Parra Hernandez "ran in front of the vehicle," and called claims that he was hit on purpose reckless and false.
Teare said the officer drove the Jeep away before it could be impounded, erasing crash data stored in the vehicle. ICE has also begun deporting witnesses in the case, Teare said on Oct. 30.
Teare said Morales was hired by ICE in August 2025 as part of its surge into Democrat-run cities. The district attorney said he had serious concerns about the qualifications of ICE hires and how much training they have been given.
"I've reviewed thousands of job applications and resumes for law enforcement officers from around this state and I'm not familiar with a single agency that would've hired this person based on his past," he said of Morales.
Teare said he hopes the indictment "sends a loud and clear message to every ICE officer who feels they have a free pass to terrorize our streets. The time to stop is now. And if you don't, you will be held accountable."
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the district attorney's accusations around the investigation.
Victim struck by ICE had no criminal history, prosecutor says
Parra-Hernandez, 48, is an unauthorized immigrant in the United States from Mexico and had no criminal history, deportation order or any immigration proceedings at the time of the crash, Teare said.
Parra-Hernandez is a construction worker who was on his way to work that morning, according to FIEL Houston, an immigrant advocacy group.
After the incident, ICE said its officers had been looking for a different man, whom the agency described as a "public safety threat," and that officers had seen him get into the truck.
The man ICE said they were looking for "has apparently been dead for nine years," Teare said on Oct. 30.
Multiple ICE operations have led to injury and death
The Houston case is not the first in which what ICE describes as a targeted enforcement operation has ended in serious injury or death.
Two days earlier, on Oct. 8, an officer shot Oscar Belgal, 28, in New York City’s Marble Hill neighborhood as he sat in his car with his 5-year-old son in the back seat. At least one officer fired seven rounds after Belgal began pulling forward, hitting Belgal below his left ear. The boy was not hurt.
In July, an ICE officer in Houston’s East End shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, as he drove his construction crew to a job site. The agency said he tried to run over an officer – an account his family and the men in his van dispute. DHS later acknowledged he was not the man officers were looking for, saying only that he resembled their target.
In Chicago last year, federal prosecutors dropped charges against Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen shot five times by a Border Patrol agent, after video showed the agent steering into her car rather than the other way around. That agent, too, was accused of driving his vehicle away before it could be examined, taking it to Maine.
A federal judge in Chicago separately found the government’s accounts of its agents’ use of force against protesters and journalists not credible.
And in Minneapolis, the Justice Department abandoned charges against two Venezuelan men after ICE acknowledged its officers had lied under oath about the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. The officer who fired, Christian Castro, now faces state assault charges.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ICE officer who struck man with vehicle indicted for aggravated assault
