A Harris County grand jury indicted ICE agent Mario Alberto Morales on Friday for intentionally running over the legs of a fleeing immigrant man on October 10, District Attorney Sean Teare announced.
Morales is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, based on surveillance footage that prosecutors say shows the federal agent struck the man on purpose. As of Friday morning, Morales had not turned himself into authorities or been booked at the Harris County Jail.
If convicted, Morales faces up to 20 years in prison.
Teare emphasized during a Friday morning news conference that he believes standard law enforcement procedures were not followed by the federal agent.
“All law enforcement officers — local, state and federal — need to be properly vetted, trained and expected to follow generally accepted law enforcement practices,” he said. “This is particularly true in vehicle pursuits and stops. As long as I am district attorney, this office will prosecute any law enforcement officer who violates the law. An ICE badge does not give you free rein to injure, kill or violate the constitutional rights of anyone.”
On the morning of October 10, Miguel Parra-Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, was driving a Chevrolet Silverado truck near Clay Road and Highway 6 when the incident occurred. Neither Parra-Hernandez nor his passenger, a man identified as “Omar,” had a criminal history or any active immigration warrants, according to their family members.
When the men attempted to flee, a Jeep Cherokee SUV driven by Morales ran over Parra-Hernandez’s legs, breaking one in three places. Parra-Hernandez underwent surgery at Katy Memorial Hermann Hospital and has since been transferred to another rehab facility, where he is under surveillance by federal agents and faces deportation. Omar got away, but Harris County authorities say they have communicated with his attorney.
Shortly after the collision, Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed that their intended target was Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom they described as a convicted felon who has been deported multiple times and re-entered the United States illegally. Civil rights activists with the immigrant-led organization FIEL Houston say that Mendoza-Cervantes has been dead since 2017, an assertion Teare confirmed on Friday.
Teare and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez showed video footage at Friday’s news conference that they say demonstrates the hit was intentional. They also shared Morales’ body camera footage and a portion of his 911 call for an ambulance in which he told a dispatcher, “I tried to get around him and he hit my car.”
Teare told reporters that Parra-Hernandez has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years and is an unauthorized Mexican national. “There was no pending immigration proceeding against him,” Teare said. The DA added that the evidence is as clear as any case he’s ever prosecuted or investigated.
“Morales aggressively steered his vehicle into Parra-Hernandez. Not only did he hit Mr. Hernandez, he ran over both of his legs, leaving him seriously injured and hospitalized to this day,” Teare said.
FIEL Executive Director Cesar Espinosa has said that federal agents, claiming they’re pursuing a particular violent criminal, are actually just arbitrarily cruising the streets of Houston, leading people on high-speed chases that end in violence.
“Immigration has enough money, with the Big Beautiful Bill that provided $71 billion, to do a proper investigation,” Espinosa said at a news conference earlier this month. “They have to stop pulling people over just because they fit a description, just because they may seem like an immigrant, just because they’re driving a white truck on the way to work.”
Following the news of Morales’ indictment on Friday, Espinosa said the action represents a “glimpse of hope in our system [for] our battered and beaten community.”
“Today proves that no one, no matter who they work for, is above the law,” he said in a statement. “We know this is not the end but rather a step in the right direction for this family, for the community and for the nation. We must see this through. We must arrest, try and convict those who cause our community members harm. We once again DEMAND the immediate release of Miguel Parra so that he may fully cooperate with this investigation without any influence from ICE.”
Although Morales was placed on leave after the incident, DHS officials have said that allegations that Parra-Hernandez was struck intentionally are “reckless and false.”
Teare has also been presenting evidence to a grand jury — the same one that indicted Morales — on the July 7 fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood. The DA has heavily criticized the federal government’s lack of cooperation and said that the aggressive immigration enforcement approach is making it more difficult for his office to prosecute cases.
The DA has also said that if the evidence in the Araujo case points to a crime, he will file murder charges.
In response to questions from reporters on Friday, Teare confirmed that Morales was hired during Operation Metro Surge, an effort by the Trump administration to increase the presence of federal authorities in large cities and to conduct mass deportation efforts. It is believed that Morales is the first ICE agent in Texas to be charged with a crime since the surge began late last year.
The DA said he has not obtained Morales’ training records and is unaware if he has any such documents, but he has reviewed his work history and, “I’m not familiar with a single law enforcement agency that would hire this person.”
Sheriff Gonzalez noted that his investigators learned that while Morales was pursuing Parra-Hernandez, two men were handcuffed in the backseat of the ICE agent’s SUV.
“I know of no law enforcement agency that would deem that to be acceptable,” Gonzalez said. “It’s very unsafe. Some other crash could have occurred and with them being handcuffed and shackled inside the vehicle, it would have been maybe an even worse situation because they were very limited in their movement in the backseat of the vehicle.”
Teare acknowledged that there are similarities between the incident that led to Araujo’s death and the collision that injured Parra-Hernandez. Both men had lived in Harris County for decades and were not the intended target of an ICE sting. However, in the case of Parra-Hernandez, Morales was wearing a body camera that “allowed investigators to move more quickly” in their investigation.
“Make no mistake, nothing about today changes our laser focus on continuing and concluding the investigation into Mr. Salgado’s death as quickly and as thoroughly as we can.”
The grand jury that indicted Morales is overseen by 174th District Court Judge Hazel Jones. Its term ends today, October, 30, but could be extended.
“It’s not up to the DA’s office to hold over a grand jury,” Teare said. “That is up to the grand jury themselves and the district court judge. Whether or not that’s going to happen, I can’t speak to.”
Teare said he hopes that the prosecution of Morales does more than bring justice to the Parra-Hernandez family.
“I hope that it also sends a loud and clear message to every ICE officer who feels like they have a free pass to terrorize our streets: the time to stop is now, and if you don’t, you will be held accountable,” he said.
