California ICE shooting: Family says detainee bounced through jails, hindering recovery
Relatives of a 36-year-old man shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers this month accused the agency of shuttling him through a slew of jails over a four-day period, actions they said endangered his health and prevented him from speaking to an attorney.
Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, a 36-year-old citizen of Mexico and El Salvador, was arrested April 7 during a traffic stop near Modesto. According to the criminal complaint filed after his arrest, four ICE and Border Patrol agents pulled Hernandez over and told him to exit his car.
Hernandez refused to get out of his car, according to the complaint, prompting one of the agents to break his window while two others drew their sidearms. In the seconds that followed, according to the complaint, Hernandez drove forward about a foot and hit one of the officers, then backed up, striking one of the agents' vehicles, and then put the car back into gear and drove away, forcing one agent to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.
Officers fired multiple shots during the encounter, striking Hernandez "several times," according to an April 14 news release from the Department of Justice.
As Hernandez drove away, his vehicle jumped the median and traveled about 500 feet, crashing into another vehicle and guardrail, before ultimately stopping, the DOJ said.
First responders later took him to Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, where he underwent several surgeries. He was later taken into custody by the FBI and charged with assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In the aftermath of the shooting, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons released a statement saying Hernandez was a gang member from El Salvador wanted for questioning in a homicide, but Hernandez's lawyer said the Salvadoran had been acquitted of the crime in 2019 and never had gang ties.
Hernandez's attorney, Patrick Kolasinski, told the Chronicle that his client fled only after being shot.
"He fled in a panic because he was being fired on," Kolasinski said April 9 in an interview. "He was not trying to hurt anybody - he was trying to get away because he'd already been shot at. He was just scared that he was going to die."
Hernandez's relatives said that just days after he underwent four surgeries for his injuries, authorities removed him from the hospital.
Advocates for Hernandez said that between April 13 and 17, federal authorities sent him bouncing on a 700-mile journey through jails in Sacramento, Stanislaus, Yuba and Nevada counties, as well as holding him at Taft State Prison near Bakersfield. Officials from the FBI's Sacramento field office were not immediately available for comment Saturday.
In a written statement, Kolasinski accused federal agencies of "failing to communicate" and preventing Hernandez from access to legal counsel.
"This raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability," he said. "Carlos should still be in the hospital. There is no guarantee he is recovering. His well-being must be the priority."
At a court hearing in Sacramento on April 14, Hernandez appeared "visibly incapacitated, confined to a wheelchair (and) unable to speak clearly," according to a statement from Faith in the Valley, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights.
"This is not normal. This is not humane. This is not justice," said Nora Zaragoza-Yáñez, program manager for the Valley Watch Network, which monitors and verifies ICE activity. "Carlos should be in a hospital recovering - not being moved between facilities and denied access to care and counsel."
On Saturday, his fiancée said she had finally spoken to Hernandez after frantic days being unable to reach him.
"They transferred him from jail to jail, and they don't give us information about when they're going to transfer him," Cindy, who declined to give her last name out of safety concerns, told the Chronicle. "We have been finding out because we are the ones who are calling jails and asking if they have news about him, and they tell us that he has already been moved."
When she finally spoke to Hernandez on Saturday morning, he told her that he'd been treated well, she said, but he hadn't been able to have his wounds cleaned since Thursday.
Cindy said she is frustrated by the inconsistencies from the government about why ICE had seized her fiancé.
"What I want is for things to be established for real, for them to really tell the truth and for them to also admit the flaws that they made," she said.
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