ICE, agent's attorney speaks against charge tied to Houston-area operation

Thank you for staying with us now. Here's a look at our top story. It's a big one here today. A grand jury has in fact indicted the ICE agent accused of hitting a man with his vehicle in West Harris County earlier this month. This dash camera video shows exactly what happened on Clay Road on October 10th. Harris County DA Sean Teer says the video shows ICE officer Mario Alberto Morales running over Miguel Pata Hernandez. Officer Morales calls 911 afterwards and he He tells the dispatcher that Miguel Potter Hernandez, Hit his car. Here's the clip. Okay, tell me exactly what happened. So we're following this guy, trying to pull him over. He jumped out of the vehicle. I tried to get around him, and he hit my car. Was it vehicle versus pedestrian, is that correct? All right, so now we are joined by Karis Belger. And Karis, you were at the announcement today made by the DA, Sean Teer. Walk us through this indictment. Well, he's charged with aggravated assault with a weapon. And DA Sean Teer said that he would be pursuing charges against the agent involved very early on after the incident took place. Now, Teer mentioned that he believed this was going to be an uphill battle of sorts. He expressed concern because he, according to him, there had already been witnesses to this incident who were deported. And we know that this originally happened because of an ICE enforcement event on October 10th. So a lot of questions still need to be answered. But Teer was very clear that he intended to move forward. Here's a little of what he had to say earlier. ICE has progressively begun deporting of the material witnesses to this case. Despite our objections, despite our acknowledgement that they are. So we are aware of at least two that have already been deported. One of them, we had to fly down an investigator to Port Isabel Hours before they deported him. Less than a week after this crash. And so earlier today I reached out to DHS and to ICE to try and get a statement and ICE spokesperson did get back to me. I'm going to paraphrase briefly what they said. They said that this was a politically motivated action essentially. They also stated that any sort of statement, any sort of accusation that the officer involved, the ICE agent involved in this case Mario Morales was intentional, was reckless and false. And that is something that has been been constant anytime we have reached out to DHS and to ICE to get a comment on this particular case. A particular incident, but that is exactly what ICE is saying and in the immediate aftermath of this indictment, Anthony. And you know Karis, with just understanding, just spoke to one of the attorneys here for the ICE agent. I did, I got off the phone with him less than half an hour ago. So David Lindenmuth, he is representing the agent Mario Morales. And he said that his client is in fact still in the state of Texas. He intends to surrender on Monday because of the warrant. But he also said that his client had a long history of law enforcement. He reiterated to me that his client had not only served in the military, he'd been in law enforcement prior to this, he'd been involved with the sheriff's office in another county in Texas. And he also worked as a contractor with ICE prior to being hired full time with them. And he also said that he completely disagreed with the way DA Sean Teer had made his client out to be. And he believed that it was a sign, at least in his mind, that Teer had a weak case. All right, so he has been serving our country as a soldier and then as a public servant as often as he can throughout his adult life. So I fail to see where the DA is coming from other than to villainize a person. And that is not what an elected DA should be doing. No prosecutor should be doing that. So now we have heard from both sides again, that interview happening just within the last half hour. So we do anticipate that Morales will surrender on Monday. That is the latest as far as this case is going forward with Anthony. All right, Karis, thank you so much. We also know that Morales was one of the surge hires by ICE in August of 2025 for that federal agency. In our continued coverage of this very story, Cesar Espinoza, who's a well-known advocate here in the city with FIEL, it's a civil rights organization. Well, he spoke after the indictment was announced. Here's his message. In order to keep the transparency and in order to further this cause, we ask for the immediate release of all people involved in this case. Including all the witnesses, which include Luis Delfin and the victim of this case, which is Mr. Miguel Parra, who is currently still under ICE detention. All people involved must be released so that they can cooperate fully and really lead this into the transparent investigation and thorough investigation that needs to be.