A federal grand jury has indicted Ontario resident Carlos Jimenez on suspicion of assault on a federal officer with a sentencing enhancement of using a deadly weapon, three weeks after an officer shot Jimenez as he backed his car toward officers and then drove away.
Jimenez, 25, could face 20 years in federal prison if convicted as charged.
Jimenez, according to one of his attorneys, said he was making a three-point turn to drive away as ordered after he said one of the officers threatened him with a gun and pepper spray and told him, “Get the … out of here.”
Jimenez had pulled alongside the officers, who had made an unrelated immigration enforcement traffic stop on Vineyard Avenue around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 30, and advised them that they were blocking a school bus stop where children would soon arrive, the attorney said.
Jimenez is due to appear in U.S. District Court in Riverside on Tuesday, Nov. 25.
His defense attorney, Federal Public Defender Ayah Sarsour, could not be reached for comment Wednesday, nor could the attorney representing him in a possible civil action, Greg Jackson. One of Jimenez’s brothers, Francisco Jimenez, declined to comment on Wednesday and said Carlos was not likely to publicly discuss the indictment either.
The indictment, filed Nov. 18, says “Carlos Jimenez intentionally and forcibly assaulted, resisted, impeded, intimidated, and interfered with victim N.J., an employee of United States Customs and Border Protection, while she was engaged in, and on account of, the performance of her official duties, and in doing so, used a deadly and dangerous weapon, namely, a car.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a criminal complaint that on Oct. 30, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers pulled over a Honda Accord on Vineyard Avenue in Ontario about 6:30 a.m. While officers spoke with the driver, Jimenez approached in his Lexus SUV and engaged in “a verbal altercation” with officers.
An ICE officer walked up to Jimenez “firearm in hand” and ordered Jimenez to leave, the complaint says. The officer then holstered his gun and pulled out pepper spray. It was then that Jimenez drove forward, turned his wheels and “rapidly accelerated” backward toward the Honda and a second officer. That officer, who works for Border Protection, the complaint said, feared she and the Honda would be struck.
But it was the ICE officer who fired, the complaint says. The bullet shattered the right, rear passenger window and struck Jimenez in the back of the shoulder.
Jimenez then called 911 and drove to his residence in a nearby mobile home park, said Jackson, his civil attorney.
The officers, even though they believed Jimenez had committed a crime, did not pursue him, nor did they attempt to render medical aid. Federal officials, in responding to inquiries by the Southern California News Group, have not explained why.
A relative took Jimenez to a hospital, where the FBI arrested him.
Jimenez, according to Jackson, was not attempting to run over the officers. But because of the way the officers’ vehicles were parked, Jackson said, Jimenez’s path was blocked. So he drove forward, then back at an angle, and then forward again to drive around them. That’s when he was shot.
Jimenez is not in custody. Prosecutors had sought to hold him, telling a judge that he was a risk to flee and was a danger to the public, according to the government’s request for detention filed with the court. But the judge on Oct. 31 rejected that petition and freed Jimenez on $10,000 bond, ordering him to wear an ankle monitor.