ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car
An asylum seeker reported paralysis after being shot by an ICE officer who was not wearing a body camera.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car
Photograph: HuffPost (embedded from source)
What this story says
- An ICE officer shot Venezuelan national Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez in Austin, Texas.
- Pérez's attorney stated agents 'sideswiped' his car before firing shots and that there was not a foot chase.
- Pérez had entered the U.S. legally as an asylum-seeker in 2024 and had a valid work permit.
- The ICE officer involved in the shooting was reportedly a new recruit and was not wearing a body camera.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 7 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
60/100
Craft
61/100
Hype
20/100
7 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
Only 1 of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez in Austin, Texas. Pérez, who had entered the U.S. legally as an asylum-seeker in 2024 and possessed a valid work permit, reported paralysis on the left side of his body following the incident. According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, agents attempted to pull Pérez over after checking his license plate and discovering an outstanding deportation order.
Disagreement on the incident's initiation
Pérez's attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, stated that agents in unmarked vehicles "sideswiped" his car before firing shots inside the vehicle. She also stated there was not a foot chase. DHS officials, however, claim agents attempted to pull Pérez over and detain him before he drove away and guns were drawn.
What the coverage left out
None of the left-rated digests mention the claim by Pérez's attorney that agents "sideswiped" his car before firing shots. The right-rated digest does not mention that Pérez had entered the U.S. legally as an asylum-seeker in 2024 and had a valid work permit, nor does it mention his reported paralysis.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 2 times, most recently on 23 Sept 2026, 16:30, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
4 rated outlets
- Four left-rated reports highlighted that the ICE officer involved in the shooting was reportedly a new recruit and was not wearing a body camera. HuffPost and Axios noted that federal officials had pledged to outfit all agents with cameras. NBC News reported that it was unclear why the officer was not wearing the issued body camera, and that another officer's body camera captured only partial footage. The Washington Post mentioned the officer joined ICE last year during the agency's hiring spree and that DHS faces scrutiny over vetting and training recruits.
Centre
1 rated outlet
- The centre-rated report from CBS News stated that sources familiar with the investigation told them the ICE officer who shot a Venezuelan delivery driver was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting.
Right
1 rated outlet
- The right-rated report from Anadolu Ajansı stated that the U.S. immigration agency officer who shot a Venezuelan man in Texas did not use a body camera. The report cited the Washington Post, which reported that the officer had been issued a camera but was not recording during the shooting.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 67% are rated left, 16% are rated centre, 17% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 7. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car biased?
- ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car is one event reported by 7 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered ICE officer shot man in Austin, lawyer says agents 'sideswiped' car?
- 7 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- Who was shot by the ICE officer in Austin?
- Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a Venezuelan national, was shot by an ICE officer in Austin, Texas. His attorney stated that he had entered the U.S. legally as an asylum-seeker in 2024 and possessed a valid work permit.
- What did the attorney for Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez say about the incident?
- Pérez's attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, stated that agents "sideswiped" his car before firing shots and that there was not a foot chase. She also reported that Pérez had paralysis on the left side of his body following the shooting.
- Was the ICE officer wearing a body camera during the shooting?
- Reports indicate that the ICE officer involved in the shooting was not wearing a body camera at the time of the incident. The officer was reportedly a new recruit, and while issued a camera, it was not recording.
- What reason did DHS officials give for attempting to pull over Pérez?
- DHS officials claim that agents attempted to pull Pérez over after checking his license plate and discovering an outstanding deportation order. They stated that agents tried to detain him before he drove away and guns were drawn.
Read it at the source
7 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
4- Reports: ICE agent who shot man in North Austin wasn't wearing a body camera (opens Axios in a new tab)
- ICE officer who shot man in Austin was issued a body cam but wasn’t wearing it (opens NBC News in a new tab)
- ICE Officer Who Shot, Potentially Paralyzed Austin Man Wasn't Wearing Bodycam: Report (opens HuffPost in a new tab)
- ICE officer in Texas shooting was recruit not using a body camera (opens The Washington Post in a new tab)
The Washington Post — is The Washington Post biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
1Right
1Not rated
1How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
