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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and wounded a man during an immigration arrest in Patterson, California, federal authorities said Tuesday. The Department of Homeland Security said the incident occurred while officers attempted to arrest Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez.
DHS said agents fired defensive shots after Mendoza tried to run over an officer with his car. Federal authorities also described Mendoza as wanted in El Salvador for questioning connected to a murder.
Mendoza was wounded and taken to a hospital, officials said. His attorney, Patrick Kolasinski, said the family had not been allowed in to see Mendoza, but was told by a social worker that he was stable.
Kolasinski disputed the government’s account. He said Mendoza works as a laborer doing rehabilitation of fire damage, and he challenged DHS’s characterization of Mendoza as the man wanted by authorities in El Salvador, saying officials may have mistaken him for someone else with a similar name.
Kolasinski also said Mendoza has a 2-year-old daughter and is engaged to a U.S. citizen. Federal authorities did not address those details in the account provided through the DHS description of the arrest operation.
A dashcam video obtained by KCRA-TV showed three officers standing around a vehicle stopped on the side of a road. In the footage, one officer appears to be touching the driver-side window as the car begins to back up and turn, striking a vehicle behind it, and at least two agents appear to have weapons drawn while pointing at the car.
The video has no sound, and it was unclear from the footage alone when shots were fired or whether any words were exchanged before the gunfire, the report said. The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office said it was not involved in the encounter, and the FBI is leading the investigation.