An attorney for the family of a 36-year-old father shot Tuesday morning by immigration agents in the Central Valley said authorities have spread misinformation and stonewalled attempts to get answers in the case.
Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez was driving to work around 6:15 a.m. when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over in a targeted vehicle stop along Interstate 5 in Patterson, a small agricultural city in Stanislaus County.
ICE officers followed their training and shot Mendoza Hernandez after he “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over,” according to Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE. Lyons said Mendoza Hernandez is an 18th Street gang member wanted for questioning in El Salvador in connection with a murder.
But Patrick Kolasinski, a Modesto immigration attorney now representing Mendoza Hernandez, denied the accusation that his client tried to ram federal agents with his car. Video captured by a dash cam video appears to show Mendoza Hernandez trying to flee as three federal agents surround his vehicle.
“He is doing everything he can to not run them over as they try their best to get in his way,” Kolasinski said during a Wednesday news conference. “ICE’s own training puts their officers in danger, puts the community in danger, and the people they’re trying to detain in danger — and that is a problem.”
Mendoza Hernandez was acquitted in a murder case in El Salvador in 2019, but had no outstanding warrants there and was never a gang member, Kolasinski said. In the U.S., Mendoza Hernandez had no criminal history and his only prior contact with law enforcement was being pulled over for a cracked windshield on Friday, his attorney said.
Mendoza Hernandez, a dual national of El Salvador and Mexico, came to the U.S. in 2019 and works rehabilitating buildings damaged in fires.
Kolasinski and Mendoza Hernandez’s fiancee said they had been scrambling to gather more information from hospital staff and authorities, but still had few answers as of mid-morning Wednesday. They were not allowed to visit or communicate with Mendoza Hernandez at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto where he was being treated.
“We don’t know what his condition is. We don’t know under what color of law he’s being held,” Kolasinski said.
Kolasinski said he was not aware that Mendoza Hernandez had been charged with any criminal offense in connection with the Tuesday encounter, and it was unclear which agency had custody over him.
His fiancee, a U.S. citizen identified during a Wednesday news conference as Cindy, said Mendoza Hernandez was a hardworking man and loving father to their 2-year-old daughter. The girl watched the front door and had trouble falling asleep Tuesday night in the absence of her father, who usually gets her ready for bed, she said.
The couple have been together for several years, she said.
“In reality, they are impacting families — in this case, it’s my family,” said Cindy, who declined to share her last name due to security concerns. “I know he’s not a bad person that they’re painting.”