Texas ICE agent who struck fleeing pedestrian with his vehicle faces criminal charges in Houston

A Harris County grand jury indicted a federal immigration agent Friday after he was filmed on video running over a fleeing pedestrian during an Oct. 10 vehicle pursuit in Houston.

District Attorney Sean Teare said his office launched a criminal investigation of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after his office reviewed footage showing an unmarked patrol vehicle striking Miguel Parra-Hernandez, 48. Teare said in an interview with KTRK-TV that he believed the ICE agent intentionally hit Parra-Hernandez.

Teare said ICE agent Mario Morales faces a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — the agent’s vehicle.

Surveillance footage captured from a nearby business depicts two men getting out of a white pickup truck and running in different directions through a parking lot. The footage also shows that a black SUV pursued one of the men from behind as he ran from it.

ICE said that agents were searching for a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, who had a deportation order, and believed that man was in the same truck as Parra-Hernandez.

But Mendoza-Cervantes’s daughter later told the New York Times that her father died nearly a decade ago.

This is a developing story that will be updated.