▶ Watch Video: Austin police release new video of Venezuelan man shot by ICE
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in Austin, Texas, on Sunday was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting, sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News.
An ICE officer shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old native of Venezuela who federal officials said has a deportation order, in the upper torso on Sunday afternoon while Garces Perez was working for DoorDash, according to local authorities and his attorney.
The officer who shot Garces Perez joined the ranks of ICE last year, after previously serving as a border patrol officer within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
The shooting was the latest involving federal agents enforcing President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and has sparked protests in Texas, as well as calls for accountability and a transparent, independent investigation.
The Austin Police Department on Tuesday released dash cam and body camera footage from an off-duty officer and a responding officer who arrived at the scene after the shooting, but neither shows the lead-up to the incident. Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson have both previously stated that local officers were not involved in the shooting itself.
Garces Perez’s lawyer said Tuesday she hopes “the relevant agencies will make all available footage public so there can be a clear and complete understanding of what happened.”
The lack of body camera footage from the ICE officer who shot Garces Perez — a detail first reported by The Atlantic — is likely to escalate concerns about the shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had said earlier this month that all ICE officers would be equipped with body cams by the end of September.
“We’re getting close,” Mullin said at a news conference in New York. “By the end of September, I’m pretty sure we will be there.”
Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to inquiries on the ICE officer not wearing a body camera.
Garces Perez’s medical condition has also been the subject of controversy. Following his hospitalization on Sunday, the Venezuelan man was taken into ICE custody, with DHS alleging that he’s in the U.S. illegally with a final deportation order.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said Garces Perez was transferred back to a hospital on Monday after complaining about not having feeling on the left side of his body and believing that the bullet was still lodged in his back.
On Tuesday, Castro said Garces Perez had been transferred back to ICE’s South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, noting he’s scheduled to visit the man Wednesday.
“Today, he tells me he is receiving only Tylenol and ibuprofen for pain,” Garces Perez’s attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, wrote on X on Tuesday. “He remains in isolation, on a flat bed, and without the tablet he previously used to communicate.”
Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in a statement Wednesday that he visited Garces Perez at the ICE complex in Pearsall, during which he learned that Garces Perez had, for the first time, seen a specialist for his injuries earlier in the day. The specialist told Garces Perez he would require surgery to have the bullet removed, Casar said.
Casar said that Garces Perez also told him Wednesday that he did not learn that the bullet was still lodged in his back until more than a day after the shooting. Garces Perez also said he was initially discharged from the hospital hours after the shooting without getting the chance to speak to his physician, according to Casar.
Casar said in his statement that Garces Perez informed him that he spent the first night after the shooting “in a processing facility with no bed, in his hospital gown, cold and in intense pain.”
Lincoln-Goldfinch filed a habeas petition seeking Garces Perez’s release from ICE custody on constitutional grounds. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia ordered Garces Perez to attend an in-person hearing on the habeas claim next Wednesday, Sept. 30, effectively blocking ICE from deporting him until then.
