AUSTIN, Texas — The ICE officer who shot a Venezuelan man in Austin on Sunday, leaving a bullet lodged in his back, was issued a body camera but was not wearing it during the shooting, two officials with the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News.
The officials said it was not clear why the officer was not wearing his body camera. Another ICE officer who was in the same vehicle was wearing a body camera, the officials said. That camera captured partial footage of the incident, but the footage does not include the moment of the shooting, the officials said.
Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was shot early Sunday afternoon by an ICE officer while making deliveries as a DoorDash driver. He was taken to a hospital and, four hours after he was shot, was taken into immigration custody at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas, his attorney said. The bullet remains in his back.
On Tuesday, a federal judge granted an emergency order temporarily blocking deportation proceedings against Garcés Pérez, according to his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
The Travis County District Attorney’s Office also sent a letter to DHS and ICE leadership requesting that Garcés Pérez be allowed to remain in the country since he is “a material witness” in their criminal investigation into the shooting.
Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis shared on Tuesday evening some of the first video footage obtained by the department as part on their probe into the shooting. The videos came from an off-duty officer who captured part of the encounter between ICE and Garcés Pérez, as well as the sound of three gunshots, using his personal dash cam and cellphone.
After this, the off-duty officer alerted his colleagues to the shooting, allowing Austin police to quickly respond to the scene.
Davis said they are seeking the public’s help in obtaining any video evidence that can help them piece together the pursuit that preceded the shooting.
The day after he was shot, Garcés Pérez began “experiencing an inability to move his arm,” attorney Lincoln-Goldfinch said on social media. He was taken to the hospital Monday afternoon for several hours and then sent back to the detention center, she said.
The DHS did not respond to requests for comment about Lincoln-Goldfinch’s statements.
Earlier Monday, Garcés Pérez told a news conference via phone from detention that he was in a lot of pain and wasn’t getting the medical care he needed.
Lincoln-Goldfinch alleged in a social media post that after Garcés Pérez spoke out at the news conference, guards at the detention center “forcibly took the tablet from his hands, revoked his communication privileges, and moved him out of the infirmary into an isolated room with a flat bed that cannot be adjusted like a medical bed.”
He was then taken to the hospital around 5 p.m. after losing his ability to move his arm, she said.
“Wilber reports that he was handcuffed, shackled at the ankles, placed in a waist chain, and handled roughly during that transfer,” she said in the post.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garcés Pérez told her on Tuesday morning that doctors spoke to him about his care and gave him morphine for his pain.
“We now understand that the gunshot fractured his clavicle and that he has significant swelling and is wearing a sling,” she wrote. “We still do not have clarity about the cause or extent of the loss of movement he experienced.”
The attorney said Garcés Pérez was discharged from the hospital around midnight and taken back to the detention center, where he is receiving Tylenol and ibuprofen for his ongoing pain.
“He remains in isolation, on a flat bed, and without the tablet he previously used to communicate,” she said.
“We are asking for his communication privileges to be immediately restored and for him to be provided an appropriate medical bed and adequate medical care,” she said. “Most importantly, we are continuing to advocate for Wilber’s IMMEDIATE release.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said on social media that “despite losing movement on his left side and having a bullet lodged next to his spine, ICE has forced Wilber Rafael out of the hospital and back to the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas.”
He said that he and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, would visit Garcés Pérez on Wednesday, check on his condition and demand his release.
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement late Sunday that Garcés Pérez was in stable condition and was in federal custody pending removal from the U.S.
A senior administration official told NBC News on Monday that Garcés Pérez did not have a criminal history beyond being in the country illegally.
According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, Garcés Pérez entered the country legally and was seeking asylum. She said Garcés Pérez had filed a change of address in immigration court, but received a notice to appear in court at the old address and never got it. Because he missed his immigration hearing, Garcés Pérez was ordered deported in absentia, according to his attorney.
On Monday, Lincoln-Goldfinch shared Garcés Pérez’s account of the shooting, saying he was making a delivery when “an unmarked black truck sideswiped him.” She said he didn’t know it was ICE as the truck chased him as he tried to make a U-turn, and then “pulled him out of the car.”
Previously, DHS has accused immigrants involved in shootings with ICE of using their cars as weapons while fleeing agents, without offering evidence of its claims. But it did not make the accusation in the case of Garcés Pérez or in the case of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was fatally shot in Biddeford, Maine, in July during a traffic stop.
ICE Director David Venturella previously told NBC News that every ICE officer and agent would be equipped with body cameras by the end of August, adding the agency would allow the “expedited release” of bodycam footage “when appropriate.” Further delaying that timeline is the possibility of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin potentially switching or adding new vendors for body cameras.
A person who witnessed the aftermath of the shooting but who requested anonymity because he is going through immigration proceedings told Noticias Telemundo that he was waiting on customers at the ice cream shop where he works when he heard gunshots and ran outside, where he saw immigration agents surrounding a car.
“I approached the car and saw a man who looked sad and with his eyes full of tears. I asked him what happened to him, and he just told me, ‘I was shot in the back,’” said the person, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for more than two decades.
“You aren’t prepared to see someone like that. It makes you very angry, it pains you and you don’t know what to do,” he said.
A social media video verified by NBC News captures the sound of tires screeching followed by a person exiting a dark-colored SUV as a blue sedan is stopped next to it, both vehicles facing each other. The sedan appears to be damaged on the passenger side.
At least three gunshots are heard as the person approaches the sedan and runs up to it as it slowly lurches forward. The video shows the person standing next to the sedan’s driver’s side as it stops in front of an intersection.
Another video shows the blue sedan with its driver’s side door open and Garcés Pérez hunched over in the driver’s seat, holding his left upper chest, near his shoulder, as multiple law enforcement officers gather around.
The woman taking the video says, “Why did he do that to him?” The officers tell her that an ambulance is coming.
The video shows Garcés Pérez being taken out of the car and handcuffed behind his back. The agents make him sit on the ground. There appears to be a large bloodstain down his back. The officers cut open the back of his shirt, revealing a bullet hole.
An officer asks the woman taking the video if she saw what happened. In Spanish, she replies that “they just shot him because he didn’t want to stop” his vehicle.
“This is unjust,” she says as she’s recording the video.
Julia Ainsley reported from Washington, D.C., Daniella Silva from New York and Albinson Linares from Austin, Texas.
