Texas prosecutor says ICE officer appeared to intentionally strike a man with a vehicle in Houston

HOUSTON (AP) — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer appeared to intentionally drive a vehicle into a man in Houston, breaking his leg, a Texas prosecutor said, warning an investigation by his office could result in criminal charges.

Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, underwent surgery for a broken leg after he was hit by a car Saturday, said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, an immigrant rights organization that is helping the man's family.

Parra Hernandez remains in ICE custody at a hospital and still needs ankle surgery, his lawyer, Kim Bruno, said during a news conference Wednesday.

The encounter has set off new criticism over immigration enforcement in Houston, where local prosecutors are also investigating a July fatal shooting by a federal immigration officer.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, a Democrat, expressed concern Tuesday over surveillance footage that shows Parra Hernandez and another person jumping out of a white truck and running as a dark SUV pursues them. A vehicle strikes Parra Hernandez, who is seen on the ground seconds later.

“The most obvious criminal charge is aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,” Teare told FOX 26 Houston. “Meaning the car was used as a deadly weapon. And it certainly is what appears to have happened, based on the surveillance footage.”

Allegations that officers intentionally struck Parra Hernandez are “reckless” and “false,” ICE said in a statement. Parra Hernandez had been in a vehicle with the target of an enforcement operation, and when officers tried to stop the car, the two men fled on foot, the agency said.

He “ran in front of an ICE vehicle and was struck,” ICE said.

Espinosa flatly denied this claim during the news conference Wednesday, citing surveillance video.

The footage shows a man running from the white truck as a black SUV approaches him from behind. The video does not show the car hitting the man — that view is blocked by another vehicle — but it shows the SUV inches from the man before stopping. After, the man is on the ground behind the car.

Attorneys and relatives of others who were arrested by ICE during the operation Saturday denied during the news conference that the man ICE named as the target of its operation — Jose Mendoza-Cervantes — was even in the white van, saying they didn’t know anyone of that name.

Espinosa said Parra Hernandez comes from Mexico and has been in the U.S. for 34 years. He declined to share Parra Hernandez’s status, but said he is living in the U.S. without authorization.

He said two ICE officers were in the room when he visited Parra Hernandez at the hospital.

“He already had a surgery for the injury under his knee and now we’re waiting for swelling to go down in his ankle to be able to have a reconstructive surgery on his ankle,” Espinosa said.

He remained in ICE custody Wednesday, Espinosa said.

Teare said ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have not cooperated with his office during its investigation.

In July, Teare said DHS also ignored his request for information after an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. The shooting was one of at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration officers since the start of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Wilder is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Rodolfo Parra, brother of Miguel Parra-Hernandez, speaks to the media Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, alongside Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL, near the scene on Clay Road near Texas 6 in Houston where Parra-Hernandez was struck by ICE agents after running from an SUV pursuing another man. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Harris County Sheriff deputies work the scene after a man was struck by an ICE agent's vehicle during an immigration enforcement in northwest Houston, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. 9Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Sarah Fischer, a local artist who collaborates with Fiel to provide emergency portraiture, holds her artwork of Miguel Parra-Hernandez, during a press conference Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, near the scene on Clay Road near Texas 6 in Houston where Parra-Hernandez was struck by ICE agents after running from an SUV pursuing another man. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP)

People watch as Harris County Sheriff deputies work the scene near two vehicles involved after a man was struck by an ICE agent's vehicle during an immigration enforcement operation in northwest Houston, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. 9Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers plan to ban horse-drawn carriages from Central Park, ending their more than 150-year run as an iconic, old-timey tourist attraction, following decades of opposition from animal welfare activists and the death of a teenage tourist last spring.

The City Council is expected to approve a bill next week that would end the rides by 2028. Three consecutive mayors had called for an end to the carriage rides because of safety concerns, only to have lawmakers yank back the reins.

A spokesperson for Julie Menin, the council speaker, confirmed the incoming vote and said the proposal had enough support to pass. Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office said he had reached a deal with the speaker on the legislation.

“The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City,” Mamdani said in a social media post.

The latest push for a ban started in June, when 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan, visiting the city from India, died after jumping from a runaway horse carriage during a ride with family members. His death, which appeared to be the first fatality in a horse carriage accident since they were introduced in Central Park, reignited the debate over whether carriages, a romantic throwback to the city's past, have a place in a modern metropolis.

Mahajan's family has appeared at City Hall, in person and through videoconference calls from India, begging the city to finally end the rides.

“We are shattered, our whole family shattered. The pain does not go away,” his father, Deepak Mahajan, told city council members via a videocall during a hearing for the bill last summer, saying his son leapt from the carriage to try and help his mother, who was flung from her seat, after the horse bolted. “Every morning we wake up and think of nothing but the loss of our son.”

For decades, animal welfare activists and other critics have decried the carriage industry, arguing horses shouldn't be hauling tourists around busy streets and Central Park while having to navigate bustling traffic and gawking passersby. In the past, horses have collapsed, gotten startled and run off, hitting cars or other objects, with each accident resulting in fresh calls for a ban.

“The tragic and preventable death of 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan made clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable. Horse-drawn carriages have long been part of New York City’s history, but in an increasingly busy Central Park, this tradition has become a growing public safety liability,” Menin said in a statement.

The industry and its supporters have long cast the rides as a way for visitors to experience the New York they know from classic movies and television.

Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse danced into one of the carriages in “The Band Wagon.” Robert Redford and Jane Fonda rode one in “Barefoot in the Park.” Macaulay Culkin escaped bandits in a carriage in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

“Taking a horse and carriage ride in New York City is one of the most iconic things to do in New York City and people from all over the world know about us and travel to New York to go to a carriage ride in New York,” Conor McHugh, a longtime carriage driver, told the Council earlier this year.

Efforts to close down the industry have been met with pushback from unions and influential supporters, often resulting in tiresome political fights that have seen mayors throw up their hands over nagging worries about putting carriage drivers out of work and what to do with the horses if they can no longer work.

Transport Workers Union International President John Samuelsen said the Council's bill has “no meaningful economic relief for workers” and that Menin “used the tragic death of a tourist to contrive a public safety crisis.”

“This is disgraceful political opportunism, and Zohran should not simply go along with it, particularly when immigrant families’ livelihoods are being destroyed. This entire situation is reprehensible,” he said in a statement.

The proposal as written would require the mayor's office to develop a workforce transition plan for drivers, and includes a measure that would allow the city to consider some kind of compensation for industry workers. Carriage owners could not sell their horses off for slaughter, according to the bill's language, which requires that horses be disposed of in a “humane manner.”

“I think we have a civic responsibility to ensure that we are not leaving anybody out to dry,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday.

The mayor's predecessor, Eric Adams, called for ending the industry during the waning days of his administration, but the proposal went nowhere. The mayor before that, Bill de Blasio, had pledged to eliminate the rides on day one of his administration but abandoned the crusade after heavy opposition from unions and a media blitz involving actor Liam Neeson.

Over the years, the city has placed various safety regulations around the industry, including a requirement that the horses get at least five weeks of vacation a year outside of city limits with daily access to a pasture. The horses are inspected by a veterinarian twice a year, and the maximum age they can work at is 26, according to city regulations. And they don't work when it is hotter than 89 degrees.

FILE - Horse dawn carriages gather at an entrance to Central Park in New York on Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - A carriage horse is covered with a blanket, waiting for customers on Central Park South in New York on Jan. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

FILE - A horse dawn carriage takes passengers for a loop through Central Park in New York on Aug. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - A horse and carriage are seen in the snow in Central Park on Jan. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter K. Afriyie, File)