Witness to Patterson ICE shooting shares dashcam video, details of what she saw
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- Witness narrated dashcam footage and recounted the April 7 Patterson ICE shooting.
- Christina said she heard the first gunshot before the vehicle moved.
- Christina said an officer pointed a firearm toward traffic and she reversed in fear.
Despite her own fear of being targeted for speaking out, a witness to the April 7 shooting of Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez by ICE agents shared on Saturday details of her experience. She spoke and shared dashcam video at a press conference organized by her lawyer, Atwater-based Roberto Serrato.
The witness, who is being identified only as Christina, said she felt a moral obligation to come forward because she was one of few witnesses and had captured dashcam video of the shooting.
“I represent Christina to ensure that (her accounts of what) transpired on April 7, the ICE-involved shooting in Patterson, California … are accurate,” Serrato said. The next step, he said, is for his office to help Christina in her cooperation with law enforcement.
During the press conference, Serrato played the dashcam footage at one-quarter speed while Christina recounted what she witnessed.
Describing her experience on the morning of the shooting, Christina said she was commuting to work on a route she takes nearly every day. She had just stopped at Starbucks, as had a white Tesla in front of her on Sperry Road where the shooting occurred.
According to Christina, she saw vehicles pulled over to the side of the road and initially thought what she saw was simply “a traffic stop or something.” She saw two officers standing outside vehicles. She did not know they were ICE agents, Christina said, just that they weren’t with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office because of the color of their vehicles.
Christina said she saw the officers pushing on the front of the car — on the windshield and the “driver’s side area.” She described their manner as aggressive.
Then, 41 seconds into the approximately 1-minute-long video, Christina said she heard the first gunshot. According to her and Serrato, the first shot was fired before Mendoza Hernandez’s vehicle moved. The acting director of ICE has said the Patterson man “weaponized” his SUV, attempting to strike officers.
Christina said she heard six or seven gunshots total, but the first “was one gunshot by itself, and then it seemed like a really long time to me before I heard … any other gunshots go off after that.” Mendoza Hernandez’s lawyer said his client was hit by gunfire seven times.
In her video and others, Mendoza Hernandez backs up his SUV and then drives forward across the median as pieces of the car fall off onto the road.
It was when the vehicle moved that Christina said she heard more gunshots, which she described as coming one after another, without pause.
Around 51 seconds into the video, Christina said, one of the officers pointed his firearm “in the direction of all of the traffic that was there,” including her own vehicle.
“I started getting scared,” she said. “I was scared because … the other gunshots that went off … and I thought that somebody was going to get hit, if not one of us here … somebody, because … there was a lot of people, and it was happening really fast … It was in an area where … there’s a lot of traffic in the morning because everyone’s trying to get on the freeway to go to work.” She said she was in shock at that point.
“I start(ed) reversing because I was scared,” she added, “I was really scared that maybe we were going to get shot. I was, you know, trying to see if maybe I could turn around. There’s nowhere to go. You can’t turn around there.”
Christina was visibly shaken during and after the press conference.
“I feel this is all very overwhelming. It’s scary. It’s traumatizing,” she said. “I don’t even think I have been able to give my family a complete meal all week.”
Asked if she had a message for ICE and whether she believed the shooting was justified, Christina declined to answe, saying, “I don’t think I should say my opinion here. I think this is really what’s most important, is the facts of what happened.”
This story was originally published April 11, 2026 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Witness to Patterson ICE shooting shares dashcam video, details of what she saw."
