A man who was shot multiple times during an arrest by immigration officers in central California pleaded not guilty on Monday to federal charges that he rammed his vehicle into two agents, prosecutors said.
A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, who has dual citizenship in El Salvador and Mexico, on two counts of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and one count of damaging government property.
Patrick Kolasinski, one of his lawyers, has said Mendoza panicked and tried to flee when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents blocked his car and that he did not intend to run over anyone. Kolasinski also disputed claims by officials that his client was a suspected gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in relation to a murder.
Salvadoran court documents show he was acquitted of murder in El Salvador and Mendoza has denied ever being in a gang, his lawyer has said. He came to the U.S. in 2019 and has no criminal record, Kolasinski has said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday that Mendoza has requested a jury trial. A status conference was set for July 27.
Mendoza is recovering after several surgeries for multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the jaw, his attorney said.
The Department of Homeland Security has said ICE officers fired defensive shots at Mendoza after he tried to drive into them. DHS said the officers were conducting an enforcement stop targeting Mendoza, 36, on April 7 in Patterson, a city about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco.
It was part of a series of shootings that have occurred during the Trump administration’s aggressive push to detain and deport immigrants in the country illegally. It is also among those where questions have been raised to federal officials about the circumstances since in some shootings, video evidence contradicted immigration officials’ initial accounts.
