The man ICE shot last week in Northern California is being charged with assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon.
A criminal complaint filed on Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California accuses Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez of attempting to use his vehicle to hurt the immigration agents who pulled him over last Tuesday when he was on his way to work early in the morning.
According to the complaint, three ICE officers and an employee of Customs and Border Protection sought out to arrest Mendoza Hernandez for immigration violations.
After they pulled him over, Mendoza Hernandez refused multiple commands to step out of his vehicle, leading the agents to break the front passenger window of Mendoza Hernandez’s car to extract him from the vehicle, the complaint states.
According to the complaint, Mendoza Hernandez reacts by placing his car in drive, moving it forward and to the left approximately one foot, hitting one of the agents. That agent then discharged their firearm. Mendoza Hernandez then reverses "and abruptly forced the vehicle in a rapid backward motion in what agents understood to be an attempt to flee," the complaint stated.
After that, two agents discharged their weapons. The complaint does not say how many shots were fired.
Mendoza Hernandez was wounded more than half a dozen times, including a visible wound in his face, according to his lawyer, Patrick Kolasinski.
The FBI arrested Mendoza Hernandez on Monday afternoon shortly after he was discharged from the hospital, where he had undergone at least three surgeries to patch up his wounds, Kolasinski said.
Kolasinski said the complaint doesn’t match what witness videos show and what he has heard from witnesses. The attorney insists that the agents who pulled Mendoza Hernandez over opened fired at him first and that that’s why his client backed up the car.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
DHS had previously said ICE agents fired defensive shots at Mendoza Hernandez when he tried to drive into them.
Officials said they were conducting an enforcement stop targeting Mendoza Hernandez, 36, in Patterson, a city about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco. They described him as a suspected gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection with a murder.
Kolasinski told reporters last week that Mendoza Hernandez was having difficulty speaking because he was shot in the jaw, but that he insisted he was never a member of a gang.
Kolasinski said his client has been stopped for minor traffic infractions but has no criminal record in the U.S. and is not the subject of an arrest warrant in El Salvador, where he was acquitted of murder.
Tuesday's complaint does not characterize Mendoza Hernandez as a gang member and it does not say he is wanted in El Salvador.
According to an Oct. 25, 2019, court document from a judge in El Salvador, Mendoza Hernandez was acquitted after being accused of murder and ordered immediately released. He was 29 at the time. The document lists 10 others who were convicted of various crimes from aggravated robbery to murder, and mentions at least one of them was a member of the 18th Street Gang. But the document contains no mention of Mendoza Hernandez belonging to a gang or being accused of engaging in gang activity.
A witness dashcam video obtained by NBC affiliate KCRA of Sacramento shows three officers standing around a vehicle stopped on the side of a road. One of the officers appears to be touching the driver’s side window when the car begins to back up and turn, hitting a vehicle behind it. At least two of the agents have weapons drawn, pointing at the car. The driver then pulls forward toward where the men are standing and turns sharply, driving over the roadway median.
The video has no sound, and it’s unclear when the shots were fired or if words were said.
Mendoza’s fiancée visited him in the hospital over the weekend where he was still in significant pain, Kolasinski said Monday.
Kolasinski has said Mendoza, a dual citizen of El Salvador and Mexico, came to the U.S. in 2019; the attorney didn't know his legal status nor how he arrived in the country.
The attorney said his client works as a laborer to repair fire damage. He has a 2-year-old daughter and is engaged to a U.S. citizen, he said.
