Venezuelan man shot by ICE in Texas says he’s in pain and still has bullet in his back

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AUSTIN, Texas — The Venezuelan man shot by ICE in Austin during a traffic stop spoke from immigration detention Monday and said he was in a lot of pain and still had a bullet lodged in his back.

Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was shot early Sunday afternoon by an ICE officer while making deliveries as a DoorDash driver. He is being held in immigration custody at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas.

Garcés Pérez said by phone during a news conference Monday that he was shot near the clavicle and that he has not received the medical attention he needs.

Lawmakers, advocates and Garcés Pérez’s attorney demanded his release, alleging he was taken from a hospital into custody within four hours with a bullet still lodged in his back.

“Wilber is a victim of the shooting and the most important witness to it. You do not deport the key witness to your own officer’s use of force,” Juan Proaño, the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said during a news conference Monday afternoon that was also attended by Garcés Pérez’s wife.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency to which ICE belongs, 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 Garcés Pérez’s attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, he entered the country legally and was seeking asylum. She said Garcés Pérez told her he had let the immigration court know when he had a change of address, but a notice to appear in court was sent to an old address. Because of this mistake, Garcés Pérez missed his court hearing and was ordered deported in absentia, according to his attorney.

Lincoln-Goldfinch shared Garcés Pérez’s account of the shooting, saying he was making a delivery when “an unmarked black truck sideswiped him.”

“He didn’t know it was ICE, and he did a U-turn under the highway. The truck chased him and sideswiped him again, and the agents came out and shot him in the back of the neck and pulled him out of the car,” she said.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statements made during the news conference or for comment on earlier statements made by Lincoln-Goldfinch.

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said Monday that “the federal government should not be allowed to shoot you and then disappear you from the country so that no one can be held responsible.”

“I am demanding, and Congress is making very clear to the head of ICE and to Secretary Mullin, that Wilber Garcés needs to be released to medical care and should not be in Pearsall,” he said, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “He needs to be released right now.”

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 also 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.

Two law enforcement agents standing behind police tape under an overpass.

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.

A dark blue Toyota car appears to have bullet holes while parked at an intersection behind yellow tape.

A Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson said the agency had received a request for assistance from ICE for a vehicle pursuit involving a blue Toyota Corolla.

Lincoln-Goldfinch said earlier she was with Garcés Pérez’s wife at the hospital where he was taken, hoping to get information on his condition, but they were escorted from the premises.

“We not only were lied to and told that he wasn’t there, but we were thrown off the hospital grounds by several officers who treated us as trespassers,” she said.

People holding cell phones and standing alongside a road during a demonstration.

DHS has not provided any information about whether the ICE officer involved was wearing a body camera or if Garcés Pérez was the target of an operation.

Local officials at the news conference decried the increase in arrests in their state and called for an independent investigation into the shooting.

The shooting comes as ICE has greatly increased enforcement across the country this summer, making more than 50,000 arrests a month for the first time in its history in July and August.

It also comes two months after an ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, in Houston during an attempted traffic stop to conduct an immigration arrest. DHS has said Salgado Araujo was in the country illegally and attempted to run over agents, but it has not provided evidence of its claims.

About a week after the fatal shooting in Houston, another ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, after a traffic stop. Neither man was ICE’s intended target during the immigration operations.

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