AUSTIN, Texas — Austin police released new video Monday that shows ICE agents with Wilber Garcés Pérez 10 to 15 minutes before a federal immigration agent shot him in North Austin near Research Blvd. and Anderson Square.
The video comes from the personal dash camera of an off-duty Austin police detective running an errand in the area. It does not show the shooting itself, but APD Chief Lisa Davis said it is helping investigators establish a timeline.
The footage shows ICE agents talking to Garcés Pérez through the driver’s-side window of his blue Toyota sedan on Sunday afternoon. They were parked on a neighborhood street near a shopping center and about 200 yards from where the shooting occurred 10 to 15 minutes later. Police say a vehicle pursuit occurred between that initial encounter and the gunfire.
“So when the officer turns into the store from that first video, at that point, those cars left, and he was in that store about 10 to 15 minutes,” Davis said. “There is some video that we have, and again, we’re processing that video of a pursuit that went through some of the neighborhoods there, and it ended there.”
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APD said it is continuing to collect and process video, along with other evidence, to get a better understanding of the pursuit and determine what might have led to the shooting.
Chief Davis says cellphone video recorded by the same off-duty APD detective captured the sound of three gunshots.
Garcés Pérez’s immigration attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, says that he was not trying to flee. She said he told her he was trying to pull over in a safer location.
Meanwhile, Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garcés Pérez remains in pain while in ICE custody at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall.
She said she spoke with him Tuesday morning after he was taken to a hospital because he was in severe pain and having trouble moving his shoulder.
“A nurse decided that he really did need to go to the hospital because he had so much pain, he wasn’t able to move, and so they took him to a hospital,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.
Lincoln-Goldfinch said Garcés Pérez received morphine at the hospital but did not have surgery.
“The bullet is still in his body. It went back through near his spine, and it came out and broke his clavicle. So his clavicle is broken,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said.
When asked by CBS Austin whether Garcés Pérez had been told why he had not had surgery, Lincoln-Goldfinch said: “No, he has not been told why they won’t do surgery on him. So that’s unclear.”
CBS Austin reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for an update on Garcés Pérez’s condition, his medical treatment, and the events leading up to the shooting. We had not received a response as of Tuesday evening.