ICE Officer Who Shot Venezuelan Delivery Driver in Austin Was Not Wearing Body Camera, Sources Say
AUSTIN, Texas — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in Austin, Texas, on Sunday was not wearing a body camera at the time, sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News, a detail likely to intensify scrutiny of the encounter.
The officer shot Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, in the upper torso on Sunday afternoon while Garces Perez was working for DoorDash, according to local authorities and his attorney. Federal officials say the Venezuelan native has a deportation order.
The officer joined ICE last year after previously serving as a Border Patrol officer within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, law enforcement sources told CBS News. The absence of body camera footage from that officer — first reported by The Atlantic — comes amid rising tensions over federal agents' enforcement of President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.
The shooting has sparked protests in Texas and calls for accountability, including demands for a transparent, independent investigation. It is the latest flashpoint involving federal immigration agents and a politically charged enforcement push that has drawn national attention.
Austin police on Tuesday released dashboard camera and body camera footage from an off-duty officer and a responding officer who arrived after the shooting. Neither video captures the events leading up to the gunfire. Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis and Mayor Kirk Watson have both said local officers were not involved in the shooting itself.
The missing footage from the ICE officer is likely to escalate concerns about the shooting and complicate efforts to reconstruct what happened in the moments before shots were fired.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said earlier this month that all ICE officers would be equipped with body cameras by the end of September.
"We're getting close," Mullin said at a news conference in New York. "By the end of September, I'm pretty sure we will be there."
Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to inquiries about the ICE officer not wearing a body camera.
Garces Perez's medical condition has also become a subject of controversy. After he was hospitalized Sunday, he was taken into ICE custody. DHS alleges he is in the United States illegally and is subject to a final deportation order.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said Garces Perez was transferred back to a hospital Monday after complaining that he had no feeling on the left side of his body and believed the bullet was still lodged in his back.
On Tuesday, Castro said Garces Perez had been transferred back to ICE's South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall. Castro said he was scheduled to visit him Wednesday.
"Today, he tells me he is receiving only Tylenol and ibuprofen for pain," Garces Perez's attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, wrote on X on Tuesday. "He remains in isolation, on a flat bed, and without the tablet he previously used to communicate."
Lincoln-Goldfinch filed a habeas petition seeking Garces Perez's release from ICE custody on constitutional grounds. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ordered Garces Perez to attend an in-person hearing on the habeas claim next Wednesday, Sept. 30, effectively blocking ICE from deporting him until then.
The case underscores how a single shooting can quickly become a test of federal immigration enforcement, detention conditions and oversight, with the lack of body camera footage adding another layer of dispute over what occurred.