Jose Santiago Pantoja-Morales faces one count of possession of a firearm by a person unlawfully in the United States, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Pantoja-Morales is accused of shooting Officer Justin Jones, a 16-year Dallas ISD police veteran assigned to W.T. White High School, during an Aug. 6 struggle in North Dallas.
Jones was on routine patrol near LBJ Freeway and Midway Road when a co-worker of Pantoja-Morales flagged him down. Jones picked Pantoja-Morales up after being told he had gotten out of a vehicle and was walking in the freeway median.
According to court records, Pantoja-Morales began rummaging through Jones’s work bag in the back seat. Jones stopped the patrol vehicle and tried to remove him, leading to a struggle.
Authorities say Pantoja-Morales grabbed Jones’s service weapon and fired once, striking him in the femoral artery of his right leg. Jones regained control of the gun, and Pantoja-Morales fled before being arrested a short time later.
Pantoja-Morales later told investigators he took the gun and shot Jones because he wanted to get away, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit previously obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
He was charged in state court with aggravated assault on a public servant and held on $500,000 bond. An immigration hold was also placed on him, The News previously reported.
Another Dallas ISD officer applied a tourniquet before Dallas Fire-Rescue personnel gave Jones a blood transfusion at the scene. Jones spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and later told The News he could walk but continued to experience numbness in his injured leg.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the federal firearms case.
U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said violence against law enforcement officers would not be tolerated and that his office would pursue the prosecution “with the utmost rigor.”