{"id":258150,"date":"2026-04-08T20:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258150\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T20:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:45:11","slug":"california-ice-shooting-victim-not-a-gang-member-attorney-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/258150\/","title":{"rendered":"California ICE shooting victim not a gang member, attorney says"},"content":{"rendered":"

An attorney for the family of a 36-year-old father shot Tuesday morning by immigration agents<\/a> in the Central Valley said authorities have spread misinformation and stonewalled attempts to get answers in the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ICE officers followed their training and shot Mendoza Hernandez after he \u201cweaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over,\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is doing everything he can to not run them over as they try their best to get in his way,\u201d Kolasinski said during a Wednesday news conference. \u201cICE\u2019s own training puts their officers in danger, puts the community in danger, and the people they\u2019re trying to detain in danger \u2014 and that is a problem.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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,\u00a0Kolasinski 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mendoza Hernandez, a dual national of El Salvador and Mexico, came to the U.S. in 2019 and works rehabilitating buildings damaged in fires. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kolasinski and Mendoza Hernandez\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know what his condition is. We don\u2019t know under what color of law he\u2019s being held,\u201d Kolasinski said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple have been together for several years, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reality, they are impacting families \u2014 in this case, it\u2019s my family,\u201d said Cindy, who declined to share her last name due to security concerns. \u201cI know he\u2019s not a bad person that they\u2019re painting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An attorney for the family of a 36-year-old father shot Tuesday morning by immigration agents in the Central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,723,2871,114055,14,114056,2013],"class_list":{"0":"post-258150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-ice","13":"tag-ice-deaths","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-immigration-enforcement-impact","16":"tag-us-and-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}