The FBI has arrested Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez, 36, a California construction worker who was shot multiple times — including in the face — by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop in Patterson, a rural town in California's Central Valley, on 7 April, and charged him with a single count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon. The Department of Homeland Security had initially described Hernandez as a gang member wanted in El Salvador in connection with a murder, but those claims were absent from the Justice Department's complaint, which states only that agents sought to arrest him for immigration violations; his attorney notes that Hernandez was acquitted of the murder charge in El Salvador and has no connection to the Los Angeles-based gang cited by ICE. Witnesses' dashcam footage and Hernandez's attorney contradict the government's account that he weaponised his vehicle, with one witness stating ICE fired before the car moved, while the FBI acknowledged it had not interviewed either of the agents involved — a case that adds to a series of embarrassing legal setbacks for the Justice Department in prosecutions arising from immigration enforcement operations.