DoorDash Driver Shot by an ICE Agent in North Austin Is Indicted on a Federal Assault Charge

A federal grand jury in Austin has indicted Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, the 28-year-old Venezuelan national and DoorDash delivery driver who was shot and wounded by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in North Austin on September 20, according to an investigative case update on the matter published October 21 and read in full this cycle. The indictment, returned on Tuesday, October 20 in the Western District of Texas, charges Garces Perez with one count of forcibly assaulting, resisting and interfering with a federal officer using a motor vehicle as a deadly and dangerous weapon. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

The indictment follows a preliminary hearing at which U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell ruled that federal prosecutors had established probable cause for the felony charge and ordered Garces Perez detained without bond as a flight risk, the update reported. He remains in federal custody. When CBS Austin sought reaction to the grand jury's action, representatives for his immigration and criminal defense teams said the two teams needed to confer before releasing an official statement, according to the update's account of that reporting.

What happened on September 20 remains sharply disputed, and the court filings and hearing testimony lay out two different accounts. In the Department of Homeland Security's criminal complaint, as summarized in the update, two ICE officers initiated a traffic stop on Garces Perez's blue Toyota Corolla after a license-plate query flagged his immigration status; prosecutors played body-camera footage in court that they contend shows an officer instructing him to step out, Garces Perez rolling up his window and driving off and striking an agent in the torso with his driver's-side mirror, and, after an eight-minute pursuit ending near Research Boulevard and Anderson Square, an attempt to strike an officer with the car, prompting the officer to fire. Garces Perez admitted in a post-arrest interview that he disregarded the officers' initial orders to park and exit his car, the update says, but his defense attorneys argue the body-camera video does not clearly show the mirror making contact with the agent. Speaking through immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, Garces Perez has said he was completing a DoorDash delivery when an unmarked black SUV without emergency sirens began aggressively tailing and sideswiping his sedan after he made a U-turn under the U.S. 183 overpass, that he feared road rage and tried to find a safe place to pull over, and that the SUV struck his front passenger door before an officer opened fire, striking him in the back and neck area.

The aftermath is also part of the record the update documents. Garces Perez was transported to Dell Seton Medical Center with a bullet lodged near his spine and was discharged into ICE custody hours later; he underwent surgery on October 1, eleven days after the shooting, to remove the bullet from his back. The Austin Police Department continues a parallel investigation, and, the update reports, Chief Lisa Davis has noted that federal authorities have yet to turn over internal investigative materials despite multiple requests from local detectives. The update's evidence table also records that the officer who fired was not wearing a body-worn camera during the operation. Those open evidence questions — what APD receives, and what the defense challenges in discovery — are what to watch as the federal case moves forward.