Wire reporting: (AP, via ABC13 Houston)

A Harris County grand jury on Friday indicted a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer after an unmarked agency vehicle struck a man during an Oct. 10 enforcement operation in Houston, local prosecutors said^1,2.

The Harris County District Attorney’s office identified the officer as Mario Alberto Morales and said he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon^2,3. Prosecutors said Morales was driving an unmarked vehicle when it struck Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, who was running away; Parra Hernandez was later taken into custody with a broken leg^2,3.

The collision happened near Highway 6 and Clay Road in west Harris County². ICE has said agents were trying to arrest Jose Mendoza-Cervantes, who the agency said had a deportation order, and believed he was in the same truck as Parra-Hernandez^1,2.

ICE has said Parra Hernandez stepped in front of the vehicle and has called claims that an officer struck him on purpose false and reckless^2,3. District Attorney Sean Teare has said surveillance video contradicts that account and, in earlier comments, that the footage looked like an intentional strike^2,3.

Other parts of ICE’s account are also in dispute. Teare said Friday that the man ICE named as its target had apparently been dead for nine years². FIEL, a Houston immigrant-rights group working with the family, said a daughter of that man told the group he has been dead since 2017³. Teare’s office said its investigation had not found that Parra Hernandez and the man ICE identified were in a vehicle together³. ICE did not immediately comment on the indictment³.

Teare said Parra Hernandez is a Mexican national who has lived in Harris County for more than 30 years, does not have legal immigration status, and has no criminal record or pending immigration proceedings². Local reporting said he had a second surgery on Oct. 13 for a broken leg². Teare is also investigating a July fatal shooting involving ICE in Houston^1,3. What comes next in Morales’s case, including any federal response to the local charge, was not detailed in Friday’s accounts^2,3.