Govind Tekale
A U.S. citizen who alleges he was shot in the back by an ICE officer after stopping to warn agents about children gathering at a school bus stop has filed a $25 million federal lawsuit — four days after a judge dismissed the felony charge against him with prejudice, following his completion of a pretrial diversion agreement.
Carlos Jimenez, 25, a father of three from Ontario, California, was driving to his job at a food pantry around 7 a.m. on October 30, 2025, when he stopped near an active ICE operation to warn officers about children at a nearby bus stop. According to his complaint, ICE officer Eusebio Ortiz pointed a gun at his face, threatened to shoot, and then fired multiple rounds through the rear passenger window as Jimenez attempted a three-point turn, fracturing his shoulder blade and lodging bullet fragments near his lung. The Department of Homeland Security has countered that Jimenez tried to run officers over by reversing at them — both accounts remain contested allegations. FBI agents later removed Jimenez from his hospital bed in handcuffs and drove him back to the scene while he bled, according to the lawsuit. A grand jury indicted him on assault charges in November 2025; a federal judge dismissed that indictment with prejudice on November 2, 2026, after Jimenez completed a pretrial diversion agreement. The Justice Department has said Jimenez himself requested both the diversion agreement and a pause to a related discovery dispute over officers’ phone records — a characterization Jimenez’s attorneys dispute, saying the agreement let prosecutors avoid producing that evidence.
If you ever encounter federal immigration agents operating near your home or a school zone, don’t approach their vehicles to speak with them, even with good intentions. Federal use-of-force policy generally bars firing at a moving vehicle unless the driver is using it, or other means, to threaten deadly force, and allows deadly force only when no other objectively reasonable, safe alternative is available — it is not simply left to an officer’s unchecked personal feeling, though how that standard applies to any ordinary vehicle maneuver is exactly what Jimenez’s case disputes. The safer move in such an encounter is to pull over at a distance, stay on the sidewalk, and record from afar while logging badge numbers and plates.
Alleged Witness Fabrication and a Wider Pattern
The 54-page complaint, filed November 6 against the federal government, San Bernardino County, and four named officers, accuses an FBI agent of fabricating witness statements from two neighbors who say they never spoke to investigators and didn’t see the shooting — an allegation that has not been adjudicated. It lands amid a broader pattern: reporting on the case cites a count of 506 U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents since January 2025, and a separate count of 32 shooting incidents by immigration agents over the same period, resulting in nine deaths and 15 injuries — figures that describe the wider landscape of cases, not claims that all are identical to Jimenez’s.
The government’s original criminal complaint is revealing in what it leaves out — it reduces the actual shooting to a single footnote, with no sworn statement from Officer Ortiz explaining why he felt endangered, according to reporting on the case. And around the time a judge ordered prosecutors to produce Ortiz’s phone records or a sworn declaration that none existed, the diversion agreement was reached — with Jimenez’s side and the DOJ offering different accounts of who initiated it and why.
Can a U.S. citizen sue ICE or the federal government for being wrongfully shot or detained?
A U.S. citizen may be able to sue the federal government for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows claims such as assault, battery, false arrest, or malicious prosecution against federal officers acting within the scope of their duties. This generally requires filing an administrative claim with the relevant agency within two years of the incident, and — if that claim is denied — filing suit within six months afterward. Available defendants, applicable immunities, and deadlines vary by claim and defendant, so this is a case where legal counsel is essential rather than a simple do-it-yourself filing.
The federal government’s deadline to formally respond in court generally runs from the date of proper service on the U.S. Attorney, not from the filing date, so a specific response date cannot be stated without the service record. Rep. Norma Torres has sent a letter to ICE and FBI leadership asking, among other things, whether officers wore body cameras and whether that footage will be released; as of this writing, no such footage has been made public.
