AN ATTORNEY for a man shot Tuesday by ICE agents in the Central Valley says the man may have been targeted because of “bad information,” and denied immigration officials’ claims that his client was a gang member.

Patrick Kolasinski, a Modesto-based immigration attorney representing Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez and his family, said the man’s family denied all allegations that he was affiliated with gangs. 

Kolasinski said his client works in fire rehabilitation construction, has a 2-year-old daughter and is engaged to a U.S. citizen; his family is unsure whether he is being held by ICE or any other agency.

The shooting involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents happened amid a traffic stop Tuesday morning. Kolasinski said Mendoza Hernandez was driving to work in San Jose when he was caged in by ICE agents just off Interstate 5 in Patterson, about 40 miles south of Stockton. 

Early Wednesday, Kolasinski had told reporters he believed Mendoza Hernandez could have been a victim of mistaken identity. At a news conference later that morning, he said he now believes ICE simply had bad information about an older El Salvador criminal case involving the man. Kolasinksi said he believes ICE may have begun targeting Mendoza Hernandez because he was recently stopped by police for having a cracked windshield. 

“Carlos is a family man who was on his way to work when he was detained by ICE,”  Kolasinski said. “It was natural for him to try to flee” from ICE agents.

Whereabouts unknown

Mendoza Hernandez’s fiance, who spoke at the news conference, identified herself as Cindy and asked not to use her last name out of fear of repercussions from immigration agents.  She said when she called the Modesto hospital where he was taken, staff told her they were “not authorized” to give her any information about Mendoza Hernandez’s condition. 

Kolasinski said he believes Mendoza Hernandez is being held by the FBI. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said in a statement Tuesday that agents had attempted to stop Mendoza Hernandez, who Lyons called “an 18th Street Gang member wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection to a murder.” 

Kolasinski told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday that Mendoza Hernandez was formerly acquitted for murder in El Salvador prior to migrating to the United States. He showed press documents in Spanish related to the case. “There could not possibly be a warrant out for his arrest” in El Salvador, as ICE claims, Kolasinski said. 

“Even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be an excuse to shoot somebody.”

Lyons said Mendoza Hernandez “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over,” and that agents responded with “defensive shots.” Lyons’ statement was released on the X account for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; it has not published an update on the incident since Tuesday. 

ICE methods questioned

Lyons’ descriptions of the incident invoked some of the same language that has been called into question in other violent encounters with immigration agents in the last year.

ICE descriptions of the gang affiliation of deported migrants was repeatedly called into question as hundreds of Venezuelan asylum seekers were deported to maximum security prisons in El Salvador last year. Many were identified by ICE as gang members, but those cases were later challenged in court, where documents revealed agents relied on evidence such as everyday tattoos to accuse people of gang membership. 

In other shootings by agents this year, ICE initially announced that its employees fired in self defense, before video evidence emerged that contradicted that claim. On Jan. 7, an ICE agent shot and killed bystander Renée Good in Minneapolis by firing into her car. Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the agent was responding to “an act of domestic terrorism.” Noem and other officials made similar claims about Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed a few weeks later. 

Video of Good’s shooting, though, showed her turning her vehicle away from agents rather than toward them; and video of Pretti showed an agent had already removed his legally carried handgun and walked away before another agent began shooting him in the back. 

Kolasinksi said Good’s shooting was “the first thing he thought of” when he heard about Mendoza Hernandez’s case. He contrasted recent ICE activity with the California Highway Patrol, whose officers routinely stop drivers, but are not as often involved in shootings. 

“ICE’s training,” he said, “puts the community in danger.”

This story originally appeared in Stocktonia.