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A Venezuelan migrant who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Austin, Texas, spoke out on Monday from a federal detention facility, saying he is in a lot of pain and still has a bullet lodged near his spine.
The shooting on Sunday of 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez has prompted protests and backlash from local officials.
Garces Perez was delivering for DoorDash at the time of the encounter with ICE, his lawyer and the delivery platform confirmed to News.
During a news conference Monday afternoon, his lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said she was able to speak to Garces Perez after previously not being told of his whereabouts. She said that he was taken to Pearsall detention facility 130 miles from Austin around 4 a.m. on Monday.
Garces Perez’s wife, Elizdar, stood next to Lincoln-Goldfinch during the news conference as the attorney recounted what Garces Perez told her.
During the news conference, Garces Perez called in and gave his version of what occurred during Sunday’s incident.
“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Garces Perez said in Spanish through an interpreter.
He said he is “in a lot of pain” and that doctors left a bullet inside his body “because it was close to his spine.”
He said the encounter with the ICE officers unfolded as he was making a DoorDash delivery.
“An SUV rode next to him and tried to hit him,” he said through the interpreter. “He thought it was like an aggressive driver. Turns out it was not. He asked the ICE officer if he could please pull over so that they could detain him. They said ‘no’ and they side-swiped him. He did a U-Turn to try and find a spot to park so that he could go with them and they basically ran into him and then shot him.”
He said the ICE officers never asked him to stop or turned on their lights and siren.
“The only time they turned on any lights or sirens was after they side-swiped him and like, hit him.”
Garces Perez said he still doesn’t know how many times he was shot, and added that he felt one of the bullets hit him. He alleged that the ICE officers did not immediately attend to his injuries.
“One of the officers got into my car and forcibly turned it off. I told him I was in a lot of pain and I thought I was going to pass out. And then the EMTs arrived and that was that,” Garces Perez said.
Lincoln-Goldfinch noted that an initial statement from the Department of Homeland Security said that Garces Perez was shot during a foot chase. But Garces Perez said that is inaccurate.
“There was no foot chase,” he said, adding that he “never got out of the vehicle until he had to get out of the vehicle.”
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on social media Sunday, saying, “Homeland Security Investigations, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is leading the investigation into the officer involved shooting of an illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal, during a law enforcement operation today in Austin, TX.”
“The illegal alien’s condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal,” the statement added. “This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information becomes available.”
Lincoln-Goldfinch said in a post on X that her client was in the country legally and had applied for asylum.
News has reached out to ICE for additional comment.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a statement he is “very angry and extremely disappointed that a person was shot on the streets of Austin by ICE.”
“While I’m angry and disappointed, I’m not surprised. This has happened in other cities. With the rogue nature of ICE and the chaos we’re seeing fomented by ICE, there’s no reason to be surprised. Austinites have a right to know what happened and they have a right to feel safe in their community,” he wrote on X.
A video obtained by News shows the moments after Garces Perez was shot. Taken by a witness and provided to a local city councilmember, the video shows him sitting hunched over in the driver’s seat of a blue sedan as ICE officers surround the car.
The man can be heard saying in Spanish that he was shot because he did not “brake.” Later in the video, the man is seen handcuffed while officers cut his shirt, exposing a gunshot wound on his back.
ICE officials were conducting license plate checks to carry out their enforcement operations when they had a positive match on the vehicle registered to Garces Perez, who had an order to be deported, a law enforcement source also told News.
The Department of Homeland Security has not given a full accounting of what occurred on Sunday and has not said whether the officers were wearing body-worn cameras during the incident.
An Austin city councilmember told News that city police were not permitted to conduct a crime scene investigation.
“The crime scene was entirely controlled by ICE … HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, as well as state police, Department of Public Safety, and so the city police were not being permitted to conduct a crime scene investigation,” Austin Councilmember Mike Siegel told News.
The councilmember told News that he is working with city officials to ensure that the ICE officer who allegedly shot the individual is not allowed to leave Texas.
News’ Armando Garcia contributed to this report.
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