The man ICE shot two days ago in Northern California “has a long recovery ahead of him” after he was wounded more than half a dozen times, according to his attorney, who visited him at the hospital for the first time Thursday.
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Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, 36, has had at least three significant operations to patch up his wounds, including a visible one in his face, Patrick Kolasinski, the lawyer representing Mendoza Hernandez and his family, said on a virtual media call following the hospital visit.
According to Kolasinski, Mendoza Hernandez insists that ICE officers who pulled him over opened fired at him first and that that’s why he backed up the car.
“He was trying to get away because he’d already been shot at, and he was just scared that he was going to die,” Kolasinski said.
Kolasinski said it’s unclear exactly how many bullets struck Mendoza Hernandez because of “what they do when they enter your body.”
ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement Tuesday that Mendoza Hernandez “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over. Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public.”
Kolasinski said Mendoza Hernandez told him he thought it was a routine traffic stop when officers pulled him over Tuesday morning while he was on his way to work rehabilitating buildings.
According to Mendoza Hernandez, officers identified themselves as ICE personnel after he handed over his driver’s license at their request. Kolasinski said. When the ICE officers told him they were going to take him into custody, Mendoza Hernandez asked to call his wife, Kolasinski said.
“The situation spiraled out of hand,” Kolasinski said, after officers kept telling Mendoza Hernandez to step out of his vehicle but he stayed in the car and kept asking to contact his wife. “He was simply saying he wanted to call his wife, and somebody shot him,” Kolasinski said.
A witness dashcam video obtained by NBC affiliate KCRA of Sacramento shows three officers standing around a stopped car on the side of the road, with one of the officers appearing to be touching its driver-side window.
When the car begins to back up and turn, the officer who was standing by the driver-side window draws his weapon and appears to open fire at the driver. The car quickly hits another car parked behind it. At least two of the agents have weapons drawn, pointing at the car. The driver then pulls forward toward where the officers are standing and turns sharply. The video ends showing the car driving over the roadway median.
It’s not clear from the video, which has no sound, when the shots were fired.
Kolasinski said Mendoza Hernandez told him “he moved backwards, as we see in the video, because he was trying to get away, because he was being shot at. It’s not that his movement of the vehicle triggered the shooting, but quite the other way around.”
Lyons said the officers conducted a targeted stop because Mendoza was “an 18th Street Gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection to a murder.”
Kolasinski and Mendoza Hernandez’s fiancée, Cindy, rebutted the agency’s narrative at a news conference Wednesday. They said Mendoza Hernandez was never in a gang.
Kolasinski has shared a court document from El Salvador that shows Mendoza Hernandez was acquitted in October 2019 after he was accused of murder. There’s no mention in the document that he belonged to a gang or had committed gang activity.
NBC News reached out to DHS about the court documents from El Salvador on Wednesday but didn’t receive a response. When NBC News asked DHS on Thursday about Mendoza Hernandez’s allegations that ICE shot first, it referred to Lyons’ statement Tuesday.
Mendoza Hernandez, a dual citizen of El Salvador and Mexico, came to the U.S. in 2019 following his acquittal. Kolasinski said Thursday that he lacks legal immigration status.
According to Kolasinski, Mendoza Hernandez isn’t under arrest or being detained as a suspect. The Justice Department declined to comment on Mendoza’s case Thursday.
Kolasinski added that Mendoza Hernandez is expected to be moved out of intensive care later Thursday after having spent most of the past two days unconscious because of medication and “significant pain” from his injuries.
NBC News has reached to the hospital in Modesto where Mendoza Hernandez is being treated but has not received an immediate response.
“We’re very hopeful for his recovery,” Kolasinski said.
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