ICE Opens Fire

On Sunday morning, Sept. 20, Elizdar wanted her husband, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, to stay home with her. But instead, he left to work, to deliver food orders for DoorDash.

At 12:56pm, Austin-Travis County EMS received notice of a shooting from the Austin Police Department, ATCEMS Chief Rob Luckritz said on Sunday. When they arrived on the scene, Garces Perez was suffering from a gunshot wound to the upper back.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent had shot the 28-year-old in North Austin near Anderson Square and Highway 183 while he was completing a delivery. In one of three videos released by APD on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 22, three gunshots are heard. In photos, bullet holes are visible in the back windows of the blue Toyota sedan.

In another released video, which was taken with an APD officer’s body camera, Garces Perez’s face shows anguish as he holds a hand to his back wound. “My shoulder, my shoulder, they took out my shoulder,” he says in Spanish to the APD officer, still sitting in his car.

The same APD officer then appears to pull Garces Perez from the car by the hands and puts them behind his back, and an ICE agent handcuffs him. Another APD officer cuts open Garces Perez’s T-shirt from the back. “One gunshot wound so far to the back,” the officer says. 

The Chronicle asked ICE why aggressive force was used to detain Garces Perez. The federal agency responded only with the statement the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released late Tuesday night. “This person is in the U.S. illegally, … had no valid work permit, had no protective status, and had a final order of removal,” the agency wrote.

What happened in the moments before the shooting is still not completely clear.

The first video, taken via dash camera by an off-duty APD detective, shows what appears to be Garces Perez’s sedan pulled over in a traffic stop with two black Tahoes on either side – “only about 200 yards” from the highway overpass under which Garces Perez would later be shot, APD Chief Lisa Davis told members of the press on Tuesday afternoon.

APD has not released video of what happened between that traffic stop and the shooting. “Between that time, there was a pursuit that went through some side neighborhoods there,” Davis said on Tuesday, adding that APD is still gathering and processing video evidence.

Davis refused to elaborate further when questioned about the “vehicle pursuit,” and said she does not know the reason for the initial traffic stop as of Tuesday. Davis added that there is no evidence that a foot chase occurred, as the police chief originally heard reported on Sunday.

Immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch stands with Wilber Rafael Garces Perez’s wife, Elizdar, at a
press conference Monday, Sept. 21 Credit: Sammie Seamon

Garces Perez’s family’s attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, told press on Monday afternoon that an “unmarked black truck” had sideswiped Garces Perez prior to the shooting, based on his account. He thought it was an aggressive driver.

“He didn’t know it was ICE,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said at the Monday press conference. At the same press conference, Garces Perez reported through a translator that “they never asked him to stop, and never turned on any sort of police lights or sirens” before they reportedly sideswiped him.

An ICE agent shot him and an officer “pulled him out of the car.” He made no attempt to escape on foot, Lincoln-Goldfinch confirmed.

The Chronicle reached out to ICE to verify whether or not lights or sirens were used to indicate Garces Perez should pull over. We also asked if the agents on scene were wearing body cameras, and requested release of the footage. Only the DHS statement was supplied in response to our inquiry.

NBC News has reported that, according to two DHS officials, the ICE officer who shot Garces Perez was issued a body camera but was not wearing it during the shooting. He has not been publicly identified as of Wednesday afternoon.

Garces Perez came to the U.S. from Venezuela as an asylum seeker in 2024, was inspected and admitted at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and granted permission to legally work in the U.S., Lincoln-Goldfinch and U.S. Rep. Greg Casar said Monday.

A notice to appear in immigration court was sent to Garces Perez’s old address, according to Lincoln-Goldfinch, leading ICE to issue a deportation order for Garces Perez “in absentia” when he missed the hearing – which DHS confirmed Tuesday. “The court is notorious for sending notices of hearings to the wrong address,” the attorney added.

After arresting Garces Perez on Sunday, ICE immediately sought his deportation. As of Tuesday afternoon, his deportation has been temporarily blocked via emergency order by a U.S. district judge, who ordered Garces Perez to appear in person at a Sept. 30 hearing in San Antonio.

Four Days Later, There’s Still a Bullet in His Body

On Monday afternoon, Garces Perez spoke directly to members of the press over a phone call from the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, southwest of Austin, about what happened to him after the shooting.

Garces Perez was taken to the Dell Seton Medical Center by Austin-Travis County EMS “in serious but stable condition,” Luckritz said on Sunday. During that first visit to the hospital, Garces Perez told press over the phone on Monday, he received no medical treatment.

“He was complaining that he was in a lot of pain, and he’s like, ‘Are you going to take out the bullet wound?’ And the doctor said, ‘Hey, they’re in a hurry to get you out of here,’” Garces Perez recounted through a translator.

The bullet was still lodged in his back when, only about four hours later around 4:30pm, Garces Perez was transferred from the hospital to Pearsall.

The Chronicle reached out to Dell Seton and parent Ascension Seton about their legal obligation to release patients to law enforcement agencies whose care may still be incomplete or inadequate.

“We have established procedures and policies related to interactions with law enforcement, which are the same regardless of agency – federal, state, or local – that were strictly followed in this case,” an Ascension Seton spokesperson replied in a statement.

While Garces Perez was in the hospital, his wife, Elizdar, had no idea where he was or if he was even alive. “Reports were circulating that Wilber had died. His wife was hyperventilating. She still had no information,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. They wouldn’t learn until hours later that he had been transferred to Pearsall.

With the bullet still embedded in his upper back, Garces Perez said that he was made to sleep in a “very cold room” at Pearsall Sunday night that had no bed, and was given no pain medication for his gunshot wound, he told press over the phone Monday afternoon.

“He’s saying that he’s in a lot of pain, and that they did not take out the bullet because it was close to his spine,” the translator relayed on Monday, with Garces Perez on the phone.

DHS has refuted Garces Perez’s account. “This alien was released from the hospital and arrived at the detention facility just a few hours later, where he slept on a bed,” the agency wrote, also stating that he is “receiving medical care around the clock, including pain medication.”

After Garces Perez gave his account during Monday’s press conference, guards at Pearsall reportedly “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,” Lincoln-Goldfinch reported Tuesday morning.

On Monday afternoon around 5pm, Garces Perez was taken back to a hospital and returned to Pearsall at midnight, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro and Lincoln-Goldfinch reported on social media. Garces Perez had reported losing feeling in his left side and that he was “handcuffed, shackled at the ankles, placed in a waist chain, and handled roughly during that transfer,” Lincoln-Goldfinch added. He was given IV morphine for his pain.

“Just a few weeks ago … I and others said that ICE needed to leave before someone was shot. … And that day is here.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Casar

The gunshot went through Garces Perez’s back and fractured his clavicle, where there is serious bruising and swelling, the attorney reported Tuesday. As of Tuesday, he was wearing a sling.

As of Wednesday around noon, Garces Perez is still detained at Pearsall, and the bullet remains in his body, Lincoln-Goldfinch said on social media, adding that he is in an isolated room and his communication privileges are still revoked.

U.S. Reps. Castro and Casar have an in-person visit with Garces Perez scheduled for Wednesday at the detention center. “The way ICE has treated Wilber Garcés Pérez amounts to torture,” Castro posted to social media Tuesday night.

Austinites protested the shooting of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez by an ICE agent in front of the Texas Capitol Monday night, Sept. 21 Credit: Sammie Seamon Austin Pushes Back

On Monday night, hundreds of Texans gathered in front of the state Capitol to protest ICE’s presence and acts of brutality in their city. “We want ICE out of our sight,” they chanted. “ICE has no business here.”

ICE has still not given a reason as to why deadly force was used to detain Garces Perez apart from citing his immigration status, which shouldn’t be a death sentence, speakers pressed. They demanded that Garces Perez receive immediate medical care and retain his right to communicate with his legal counsel. They called for his release from detention.

Sunday’s shooting happened only weeks after city and local officials warned of a summer surge of increased ICE presence in the North Austin area where the shooting occurred.

“It is awful that this horror has come to our doorstep. And as [Austin Mayor Kirk Watson] said, unfortunately, it is not a surprise,” Casar said hours after the shooting. “Just a few weeks ago … I and others said that ICE needed to leave before someone was shot. … And that day is here.”

Austin City Council members Vanessa Fuentes, José Velásquez, and Chito Vela have called for ICE to “leave Austin now,” and urged APD to lead the investigation of the shooting independent of the involved federal agencies. Mayor Kirk Watson and multiple Council members have expressed support for APD’s ongoing investigation and asked that all involved officers remain in-state.

DHS has responded by calling Austin’s local and state officials “sanctuary politicians” who “shamelessly protect illegal aliens,” writing Tuesday night that “ICE will not be slowing down nor leaving Austin.”

In front of the Capitol building on Monday night, we spoke with Sulma Franco, a local Guatemalan immigrant and activist. “Families right now are living in fear, in terror, in trauma,” she said in Spanish. “We’re here to say that our community is not going to stay quiet. That this is enough, enough already. That Texas is continuing to become a state that’s a laboratory for racist laws that criminalize our community.”

“He is still alive. It’s time to free him,” Franco continued. “It’s unbelievable that they are still detaining him with a bullet inside of him, and he is suffering that pain without receiving medical treatment. We demand his freedom.”

As of press time, this is still a developing story.

The post ICE Opens Fire appeared first on The Austin Chronicle.