A Recording KUT Obtained Shows the Traffic Stop and Chase Before the Austin ICE Shooting - and a Body Camera Switched Off

KUT, Austin's NPR station, has obtained a recording of the immigration traffic stop and chase that ended in the September 20 shooting of Wilber Garces Perez in Austin, the station reported Sunday. The footage begins with an agent in a tactical vest and a face covering approaching a dark blue sedan and repeatedly asking the driver to roll down his window - “Can you roll the window down, bro?” After roughly a minute, Garces Perez drives away.

What the recording does not contain is the shooting itself. One agent at the stop, identified in court records as D.F., had a body camera and later turned it off; the agent who fired, identified as L.G., was not wearing a body camera at all, KUT reported. No recording captures the shooting or the collision the government has cited - a DHS special agent testified at a September 30 hearing that a side mirror clipped L.G. as Garces Perez drove off, while acknowledging that neither the footage nor still images presented in court clearly showed any contact.

The recording also captures how the pursuit was reinforced. During the chase, D.F. called a friend at the Texas Department of Public Safety directly on his personal cellphone to ask for a trooper, and was directed to go through proper dispatch instead, KUT reported. At the same September hearing, the DHS agent acknowledged he had not interviewed the agent who fired and had not asked D.F. why the camera was turned off, and that a separate DHS investigation of the shooting is being handled by other investigators. Garces Perez, a DoorDash driver who was wounded in the shooting, has since been indicted on a federal charge of assaulting a federal officer and has pleaded not guilty; Austin police have said city officers took no part in the stop or the shooting.