Indicted ICE agent in Houston vehicle strike will turn himself in Monday

Injured construction worker remains in federal custody, district attorney says

Mario Alberto Morales, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with aggravated assault after he struck a Mexican construction worker with his SUV in a Houston parking lot, plans to turn himself in Monday, his attorney said.

A grand jury indicted Morales on Friday on a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The charge stems from the Oct. 10 encounter in which Morales struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, a 48-year-old construction worker, with his unmarked SUV as he chased him through the lot.

Morales is among a small handful of federal agents who have been criminally charged for wounding people while carrying out immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration. Many other ICE shootings, including some that were fatal, have not ended in charges for the agents involved.

One of the other charged agents is ICE officer Christian Castro, who pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he lied to the FBI after he shot and wounded a Venezuelan man during an immigration operation in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Parra Hernandez broke his leg and is recovering at a rehabilitation facility while in federal custody, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told reporters Friday.

ICE has said Parra Hernandez ran in front of Morales’ car. Previously released surveillance camera video shows Morales’ vehicle driving over a median and striking Parra Hernandez as he runs away.

Teare played footage from Morales’ body camera on Friday that showed the agent making sharp turns with his steering wheel. The video then shows him stop, exit the vehicle and turn toward Parra Hernandez, who lies on the ground screaming. “I was coming in, and I hit him with the car,” Morales can be heard saying after another ICE agent arrives.

Parra Hernandez told deputies that he fled the traffic stop when Morales started pulling on a mask, and that Morales “threw the car” at him, according to a Harris County Sheriff’s Office incident report reviewed by The Associated Press. Morales told deputies that he did not brake before he hit Parra Hernandez, but that he did not intentionally strike him, according to the report.

Lindenmuth previously told The Associated Press that the incident was “clearly just an accident” and that local officials had “invented a crime out of thin air.”

ICE said after the incident that the target of the operation was a man named Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, whom the agency said was seen getting into a car with Parra Hernandez. Mendoza-Cervantes’ daughter told the immigrants’ rights group FIEL that her father has been dead for nearly a decade.

Morales, 34, has served as an ICE agent for a little over a year, according to Lindenmuth. Teare said Friday that authorities have a “significant amount of information” on Morales and that, in his experience, law enforcement agencies would not hire someone with his background. He did not elaborate.

Morales was charged with a misdemeanor in 2013 for stealing four DVDs, according to Harris County Court records. The charges were dismissed after he paid a $270 fine and struck a plea deal.

Morales ran unsuccessfully to represent Texas’ 34th congressional district in this year’s election cycle under the name “Bam Morales,” which Lindenmuth confirmed. In a Ballotpedia candidate survey, he wrote that he served in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and later worked as a corrections officer and a law enforcement officer. He listed his top priorities as veterans’ rights, economic issues and service guided by the Christian principles of “compassion, integrity, service, and accountability,” and he identified illegal immigration as one of the country’s greatest challenges.

Morales also wrote in the survey that he was endorsed by an organization called “Make America Godlier Again.” He appeared at a 2024 Christian conference held by televangelist Johnson Suleman, where video shows Morales appearing to act as a Spanish translator as Suleman serves free food and “extends his touch of love to migrants.” “I want to pray for the immigrants,” Suleman said in the video, as Morales translated those words into Spanish. “I bless you. May the lord grant your request and open your doors.”