Houston ICE Agent Surrenders After Indictment

An ICE agent accused of driving his SUV into a Mexican construction worker in a Houston parking lot is scheduled to surrender Monday to face a felony charge, according to his attorney.

A Harris County grand jury Friday indicted Mario Alberto Morales, 33, on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Morales is accused of striking Miguel Parra Hernández, 48, on Oct. 10 while pursuing him through the lot. Parra suffered a broken leg and is recovering in a rehabilitation facility while held in federal custody, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told reporters Friday.

Morales will turn himself in at a Houston court sometime Monday, attorney David Lindenmuth told The Associated Press. Lindenmuth previously called the episode "clearly just an accident" and said local authorities had "invented a crime out of thin air."

Surveillance video released earlier shows Morales' vehicle crossing a median and striking Parra as he runs. Teare on Friday played body camera footage from Morales' uniform showing the agent making sharp turns at the wheel before stopping, exiting the vehicle and turning toward Parra, who was on the ground and screaming. "I was coming in and I hit him with the vehicle," Morales is heard saying after another ICE agent arrives.

Parra told agents he fled a traffic stop as Morales began putting on a mask and that the agent "ran the car up on him," according to a Harris County police incident report reviewed by the AP. Morales told agents he did not brake before striking Parra but did not hit him intentionally, the report states.

ICE said after the incident that the operation targeted José Mendoza Cervantes, whom the agency said it saw enter a vehicle with Parra. Mendoza Cervantes' daughter told the immigrant rights group FIEL that her father has been dead for nearly a decade.

ICE has maintained that Parra ran in front of Morales' vehicle. Teare told reporters Friday that authorities have "a significant amount of information" on Morales and that, in his experience, law enforcement agencies would not hire someone with a given background. He gave no further details.

Harris County court records show Morales was charged in 2013 with a misdemeanor count involving the theft of four DVDs. The charges were dismissed after a $270 fine and a plea agreement. Morales ran unsuccessfully for Texas' 34th Congressional District seat this year under the name "Bam Morales," which Lindenmuth confirmed. He served in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division and later worked as a correctional officer and law enforcement officer, he wrote in a Ballotpedia candidate questionnaire. He listed immigration as one of the country's biggest challenges.

Morales is among a small group of federal agents charged in connection with injuries during immigration enforcement operations. Last month, ICE agent Christian Castro pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to the FBI after shooting and wounding a Venezuelan man during operations in Minneapolis earlier this year. In many other ICE shootings, including some that were fatal, no charges have been filed against the agents involved.

Records show Morales was denied entry to a 2024 Christian conference organized by televangelist Johnson Suleman.. [truncated]