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Wilber Garces Perez, the man shot in September by an ICE agent in North Austin, appeared in a federal courthouse this month on charges of assaulting and resisting a federal officer. KUT News has obtained exclusive audio from that hearing.
Texans will be electing a new agriculture commissioner for the first time in a decade. The responsibilities go beyond supporting farmers and ranchers in Texas, but the candidates up for the job are squabbling over whether their opponent is even qualified for the role.
Plus: There’s been a half-century-long campaign to save Lions Municipal Golf Course in West Austin. Now, UT and the city have come to an agreement on ownership of the land.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:03] Wilbur Garces Perez, the man shot in September by an ICE agent in North Austin, appeared in a federal courthouse this month on charges of assaulting and resisting a federal officer. KUT News has obtained exclusive audio from that hearing, we’re going to share that with you today, and Texans will be electing a new Ag Commissioner for the first time in a decade. The responsibilities of the job go beyond supporting farmers and ranchers in Texas, but the candidates up for the job are squabbling over whether their opponent is even qualified for that role. More about those stories coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:39] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Kehanel.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:44] Plus, there’s been a half-century-long campaign to save Lyons Municipal Golf Course in West Austin. UT and the City of Austin have come to an agreement on ownership of the land. We’re going to tell you about the details and what happens next. That’s today on Austin Signal. Thank you. Howdy out there, this is Austin Signal. I’m your host, Jerry Kikano, it is Tuesday, October 20th. Thank you for tuning in and spending part of the day here with us. It has been one month exactly since Wilbur Garces Perez was shot by an ICE agent in North Austin. Garces Peres was willed into a federal courthouse at the start of October on charges of assaulting and resisting a federal officer. We told you all about that hearing earlier this month here on Austin Signal, But in a new KUT exclusive, we have obtained the audio from that hearing. KUT’s Moe’s Bouchelle has been covering this story and was in the courtroom that day. He spoke with Morning Edition host Ben Philpott about the recording.
Ben Philpott [00:01:49] The general public does not usually get to hear what happens in a federal criminal courtroom. That’s because reporters are usually banned from taping. But KUT has obtained just such a recording. It’s from the September 30th hearing for Wilbur Garces Perez. He’s the Venezuelan DoorDash driver who was shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Austin last month. The incident led to weeks of protests. The recording not only provides a rare public view into the hearing, it also includes audio from the ICE traffic stop and car chase that preceded Garces Perez’s shooting. We’re making that audio available to the public right here for the first time. Are you going to stop me for a few seconds, bro? And joining me now to talk about what we can learn from recordings, like what you just heard is KUT’s Mo’s Bouchelle. He’s been following the story since the shooting happened. Hey, Mo’s. Hey, Ben. So Moes, you were in the courtroom on that day of the hearing, but journalists were not allowed to record.
Mose Buchele [00:02:47] No, no, we weren’t. Usually there is a court reporter who takes the official transcript of what happens in court, but no one else is allowed to take audio or video. But in this case there was no court reporter, so the judge had the hearing taped and KUT requested that audio.
Ben Philpott [00:03:03] And then that recording also included the audio of what happened before the shooting.
Mose Buchele [00:03:07] Yeah, so body camera footage from one of the ICE agents was shown at the hearing. Now that footage, that video is officially sealed. The public is not supposed to see it. But since we got the recording of the hearing, it included that. It included the audio of the sealed body camera video. So the video is still sealed, but the audio is part of the record. So now we have the audio.
Ben Philpott [00:03:30] OK, so we are obviously going to get into that. But let’s start with the hearing itself. Take us back to the courthouse that morning. All rise.
Mose Buchele [00:03:39] So this was at the federal courthouse downtown. It was a hearing for criminal charges against Garces Perez. If you remember, after Garces Peres was shot, the Department of Homeland Security got all this criticism, intense criticism, not just for the shooting, but for his treatment. He wasn’t allowed to stay in the hospital. They did not remove the bullet from his body for a long time. So while ICE was under this scrutiny, DHS and ICE pushed back. And they said, well actually, this guy committed a crime. He fled from ICE agents in his car, and they say he sideswiped one of the agents who was standing by his car while he drove away, and that’s actually a serious federal crime.
Ben Philpott [00:04:21] Assaulting, resisting, and impeding a federal officer.
Mose Buchele [00:04:25] So this is the judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell. His job at this hearing was basically to decide two things.
Ben Philpott [00:04:33] So what are those two things?
Mose Buchele [00:04:34] One was whether the government had a case, right, whether the charges that they filed in their criminal complaint could move forward. And two, if the charge moves forward, will Garces Pérez remain in detention? So arguing for the government, you have the prosecutor, Brittany Verdeja. Brittany Verda for the United States, Your Honor. And then there was Garces Perez’s court-appointed defense attorney, Shane McMahon. Good afternoon, Your honor. Shane McMahon, I’m here with Mr. Garces Peres. We’re ready to proceed. Thank you. Good night.
Ben Philpott [00:05:01] So to decide whether the government has a case, then that’s the hearing, right? You gotta look at the evidence.
Mose Buchele [00:05:06] Right, and so that includes testimony.
Courtoom audio [00:05:09] The United States calls Agent Rick.
Mose Buchele [00:05:12] So this was the only person to testify at the hearing. Special Agent Rick Bassan. Now, he was not at the ICE traffic stop that day. He was not there, but he is an investigator who looked into it afterwards. So it was Bassan who determined that Garces Perez hit this other agent with his car mirror so the criminal complaint was actually written by this investigator, Bassan
Courtroom audio [00:05:37] which you’re about to give in the case now before the court will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Ben Philpott [00:05:43] So that’s really interesting that there were two agents in the field at this stop and chase, but neither one of them testified.
Mose Buchele [00:05:50] No, no, they did not testify on the hearing. In fact, Bassan did not even interview one of them. The one agent who says that Garces Perez sideswiped him, that is the same agent who later shot Garces Peres. Bassan didn’t talk to that guy.
Ben Philpott [00:06:05] That sounds a little odd.
Mose Buchele [00:06:07] Yeah, and you know, the defense raised that question, right?
Ben Philpott [00:06:10] So did he give a reason as to why he didn’t talk to the agent that pulled the trigger?
Mose Buchele [00:06:14] Bazan said that there is a different investigation going on into that shooting.
Rick Basan [00:06:20] The other incident is investigated by Superteam.
Mose Buchele [00:06:23] And so he kind of implied that that was the reason, but I don’t think he ever said it outright, like what the reason was that he didn’t talk to this guy.
Ben Philpott [00:06:29] So what did Besant say?
Mose Buchele [00:06:31] His testimony was interesting. First off, he just described the daily job of these ICE agents. He said their day-to-day thing is driving around Austin and running people’s license plates to see if they have an immigration warrant.
Rick Basan [00:06:44] They’re out there everywhere, you know, running like this.
Mose Buchele [00:06:49] He says they got a hit on the plate of a blue Toyota Corolla, belonged to Garces Perez. He had gone into a restaurant, but they decided not to arrest him there. He said that the agents determined it was safer to pull him over after he got back in his car.
Rick Basan [00:07:03] Because there’s people, more people at the business.
Mose Buchele [00:07:06] So the usual kind of idea of how ICE operates in Austin is that they work with state troopers or other police to pull people over kind of on pretextual traffic stops. And then they run the license plates and ICE is called or ICE is there if there’s an immigration question. But what he’s describing here is different. He’s saying that they just pulled Garces Perez over for the immigration violation. There was no like alleged traffic crime involved, nothing like that. I’m also In this case, it was just ICE. There was no DPS at this initial traffic stop.
Ben Philpott [00:07:37] And then at that traffic stop, that’s where the body cam tape starts.
Mose Buchele [00:07:40] Yeah, and so what we can do now is play the audio from that video, and I can tell you what I remember seeing from when we watched the video in core. Can you roll the window down, bro? In the first part of the video, a black SUV has pulled in front of Garces Perez’s car to make him stop, and there’s an agent at his driver’s side window, and towards the rear of the car, facing that agent, is this other agent, initials DF. He is wearing the body cam, so you can see the interaction. That his partner is having with Garces Perez. So the agent by the window and Garces Perez go back and forth in Spanish. The agent’s telling him that they’re immigration and he’s got to get out of the car. Garces is saying that he wants to park somewhere else. He wants to make a phone call so someone knows where his car is. And then he just pulls away.
Ben Philpott [00:08:39] And this is where that assault charge comes in.
Mose Buchele [00:08:41] Yeah, this is where the government says that the ICE agent was swiped with a mirror. So what does the video show about that? You know, for me, having been in the courtroom, it just wasn’t clear. The agent wearing the camera kind of turns away right when Garces Perez starts driving. So the view kind of immediately cuts off. In hearing itself, there was a lot of back and forth over this, over what this tape actually showed. The prosecution did actually submit one still image from the video. Uh… But then in cross-examination the government’s own witness by son kind of conceded that that image was inconclusive it might not actually shown contact
Ben Philpott [00:09:19] So what happens after he drives away?
Mose Buchele [00:09:23] So, DF, the agent with the body camera, he runs back to his SUV and he starts following the other agent, the agent in front, whose initials are LG. He follows that agent who is following Garces Pérez.
Agent DF [00:09:37] We’re in the middle of a pursuit right now.
Ben Philpott [00:09:40] So that’s him, that’s Agent DF.
Mose Buchele [00:09:42] Yeah, you can hear him swearing, you hear him kind of laughing, and while he’s in this chase, he pulls out his cell phone. So he doesn’t have a radio? If he did, he did not use it here. And I’ve talked to people in law enforcement who say that’s dangerous. Just, you know, take your cell phone out during the middle of the chase. Well, who’s he calling? He calls a few people. One of them’s a guy at the Texas Department of Public Safety, DPS. He seems to be a friend of his. He calls him bro when he picks up the phone.
Friend of DF [00:10:07] Hey, what’s up, dude?
Agent DF [00:10:07] Hey, bro, are you working? Because we’re in the middle a pursuit right now. I am not.
Mose Buchele [00:10:12] He’s asking if he can get back up.
Agent DF [00:10:13] Are you able to get a trooper to us, pal?
Friend of DF [00:10:18] Um, can I give you, let me give you the direct number to my dispatch real quick.
Mose Buchele [00:10:22] So his DPS friend tells him that he should probably just call dispatch.
Ben Philpott [00:10:26] Yeah, that seems logical. I mean, it’s an official chase. It’s an official thing. You need an official channel to get back up, right?
Mose Buchele [00:10:33] Right, yes, make it official. So, so then he does that. And then the dispatch asks for the plate number of Garces Perez’s…
Dispatch [00:10:43] Can you get a plate for me?
Agent DF [00:10:45] Give me one second, ma’am. I got you. Give me a second. I have…
Mose Buchele [00:10:52] So, at this point, the agent, ICE agent DF, pulls over to find the info.
Dispatch [00:10:58] Okay, and what’s your update?
Agent DF [00:11:00] Uh, so I lost it, but my partner still has it, let me give him a call and see where he’s at. Okay.
Mose Buchele [00:11:07] So soon after this, he turns off the body cam.
Ben Philpott [00:11:11] And then that’s it for the chase. There’s none of the car crash, none of shooting.
Mose Buchele [00:11:15] No, he was not even there when that happened. What the investigator, Bassan says, is that after DF turned off his body camera, he did talk to his partner, the other agent, by phone. And that is when Agent DF, the guy who had the body camera on, told Bassan that in that conversation, his partner this guy, LG, told him that he had struck Garces Perez’s car He had forced it to spin out and then shot Garces Perez because he was worried, the other agent was worried that he was going to get hit by his car.
Ben Philpott [00:11:55] So that whole part is, is just secondhand. It’s he, he heard from a person who said they did it.
Mose Buchele [00:12:00] Yeah, yeah, the ICE agent who fired the shots had no body camera, and D.F. Had turned his body camera off when this conversation that’s described happened. So there’s no record of that. It’s just his statement that that’s what the other guy said to him after he turned his body camera on.
Ben Philpott [00:12:19] Well, what did the defense lawyers have to say about that?
Mose Buchele [00:12:21] Um, well, you know, for one, he asked Basan why the other agent did not wear a body camera.
Lawyer [00:12:30] You didn’t have one? I know he didn’t. My question is, if you know, why?
Rick Basan [00:12:37] I cannot. Uh, we haven’t spoken to him.
Mose Buchele [00:12:42] So he also asked why DF, the agent with the camera, stopped recording, you know, before this pretty crucial conversation.
Rick Basan [00:12:50] You would have to ask the FBI for a way to get off.
Lawyer [00:12:52] Well, I haven’t talked to DF, but I know that you have. Did you ask DF why he turned it off?
Rick Basan [00:13:00] No.
Mose Buchele [00:13:01] So this whole exchange probably gives us something of a preview into how the defense might raise some doubt about the government’s version of events. That’s assuming the case goes to trial.
Ben Philpott [00:13:12] So will it go to trial?
Mose Buchele [00:13:14] At the start of our conversation, Ben, I said the judge had two things to decide. Was there sufficient evidence to allow the charges to move ahead? The judge said yes, there was. So yeah, there could be a trial.
Ben Philpott [00:13:25] So unless there’s some kind of deal yet, it’s probably gonna go forward.
Mose Buchele [00:13:28] Right, yeah, yeah. And then the other thing was whether Garces Perez should remain in custody ahead of that trial. And the judge said yes to that too, because he determined he might be a flight risk.
Ben Philpott [00:13:40] And what’s Garces Perez’s condition now? During the hearing last month, he had the bullet still in his back, correct?
Mose Buchele [00:13:45] Yeah, he still did. One thing that happened after this hearing is that he was transferred out of DHS immigration custody and then transferred into federal custody on this criminal charge. And it’s worth noting that after he got out of the DHS custody, he quickly underwent surgery and the bullet was removed.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:05] That was KUT’s Moe’s Bouchelle speaking with Morning Edition host Ben Philpott about exclusive KUT audio and coverage of the Wilbur Garcespedes case. We have more of Moe is reporting at KUT.org and on the KUT app. And we have plenty more Austin Signal coming your way, that’s after this short break. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. The Texas Agriculture Commissioner is responsible for supporting the state’s farmers and ranchers, but the job also includes a whole lot more, everything from regulating scales at the grocery store to administering public school lunch programs. And for the first time in more than a decade, Texans will be electing a brand new person for that role. That’s after longtime Ag Commissioner Sid Miller lost in the Republican primary in March. But the candidates vying to replace Miller aren’t just debating farm policy. Texas Standard’s Michael Marks reports they’re also questioning if their opponent is even eligible for the offer.
Michael Marks [00:15:11] Office. Inside a small event space in Giddings, Texas, in our east of Austin, Republican Nate Sheets has just finished pitching about two dozen people on why he should be Texas’s next Agriculture Commissioner.
Nate Sheets [00:15:25] This is actually the beginning of day four of a 32-day, 80-county, 94-stop rural bus tour.
Michael Marks [00:15:32] The bus engine is loud, so Sheets and I are talking inside, just next to a table covered in green and yellow Make Agriculture Great Again hats. Sheets is a beekeeper who built his own honey company. He’s also worked as a Christian missionary. Sheets says as ag commissioner, he’d make it easier for Texans to buy from local farmers and ranchers.
Nate Sheets [00:15:54] People want to eat local. They want to support their local producers. They just don’t know how to find them unless you’re going down to a farmers market. I think there should be a Go Texas farmers market at every single elementary school across Texas. Let moms come down, drop off their kids on Wednesday morning, go over and go buy her things for the week.
Michael Marks [00:16:13] Outside the engine of his big orange campaign bus roars as supporters sign the side of it with Sharpies. I asked cattle raiser Robert Cromwell what he thought of the GOP candidate.
Robert Cromwell [00:16:26] I think he’s got a very good approach. Very impressed. Very impressed, I think it’s going to be a lot better than a guy running against him.
Michael Marks [00:16:34] That would be this guy.
Clayton Tucker [00:16:36] Clayton Tucker, running for Texas Ag Commissioner, the Secretary of the Farmers Union. I help run my family’s farm.
Michael Marks [00:16:43] The Democrat has also worked for progressive political campaigns. Tucker has campaigned on slowing down data center development in Texas. One of his proposals to do this is through independent studies on the water and electric needs of any new data center.
Clayton Tucker [00:16:58] So I will want these ag impact studies done on all these data centers and anything else that looks to be a massive water hog so that we have verified provable studies of how much of our.
Michael Marks [00:17:12] Resources will be used. That’s inspired volunteers like Anthony Rivera-Strain. His focus on AI data centers and protecting water, especially in rural communities is very much important. Rivera-strain’s not completely sold on the resume of Republican Nate Sheets either. You know, he’s not really, he doesn’t really seem like a farm guy. Which is one of the big sticking points in this campaign. Both the Democrat and the Republican are arguing over whether the other should even be running. Last month, Attorneys for Clayton Tucker sent a letter to the head of the Texas GOP, claiming that Sheets is not eligible to be the Texas Agriculture Commissioner. The position has prerequisites. You must have worked on a farm or ranch in five of the past 10 years, or spent time in a government agency on agriculture. Tucker says Sheets’ beekeeping experience does not qualify.
Clayton Tucker [00:18:05] The AG law in that particular code doesn’t really list beekeeping, and it doesn’t list food importing or anything like that. Should it list bee keeping? I personally think it probably should, but that’s not the current letter of the law. And we do have to follow the law
Michael Marks [00:18:21] I asked Sheets about this at his event in Giddings. He said there’s nothing to it.
Nate Sheets [00:18:26] I also have a farm that I’ve owned since 2012 where I started Nature Nates. We had bees out there, we bottle our honey out there. Everything that is mandated in the Texas Department of Agriculture or in the state constitution, I qualify for.
Michael Marks [00:18:41] If anyone has to worry about being ineligible for the office, Sheets thinks that’s Tucker.
Nate Sheets [00:18:46] He doesn’t own any land. His own personal financial statement says he’s a community organizer. And he’s rancher because he’s wearing a cowboy hat. That’s total.
Michael Marks [00:18:58] The Democrat, Tucker, says he’s qualified for the position because of his work on his family’s land near Lampasas.
Clayton Tucker [00:19:05] So between 2016, 2017, 2018 is where I started really taking over the, you know, the fence building, the operations, the.
Michael Marks [00:19:14] Despite this whole battle, they both told me their argument won’t last past election day. Both Tucker and Sheets pledged to not take legal action over the other’s eligibility if they lose the race. I’m Michael Marks in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:30] And in an update to Michael’s story, the current Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is telling voters not to vote for the Republican in the race to replace him. Miller has held the office for more than a decade, but lost to challenger Nate Sheets in the Republican primary earlier this year. In a written editorial, Miller said that Sheets was too weak on data center development and lacked good judgment. The Democrat in the race, Clayton Tucker, campaigned with Miller on this issue. Since Tucker has made data center regulations a centerpiece of his campaign, Sheets says that Miller is angry about losing to him in the Republican primary.
Nate Sheets [00:20:05] And Sid Miller is partnering up with Clayton Tucker to make sure that I lose and the governor loses because he wants to see the people that beat him go down.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:15] Miller wrote that Tucker, the Democrat, will help defend rural water and property rights from quote, unchecked corporate expansion, end quote. After decades of campaigning and save-muni yard signs, it appears Lyons Municipal Golfs Course in West Austin may finally be, well, saved. The fate of the historic golf course has been uncertain for years, but it was announced this month at the City of Austin and the University of Texas were nearing an agreement on ownership of the land. But why was the golf course at risk, and what does its future look like going forward? Justin Sayers joins us now to explain, he is a senior staff writer at Austin Business Journal. Justin, thanks for being back on the show.
Justin Sayers [00:21:05] Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:06] So for those of us who aren’t that familiar with the story of Muni, can you give us a refresher on the history of this golf course? Why exactly is it so important here in Austin?
Justin Sayers [00:21:15] Yeah, so it’s really funny. Our executive editor Colin has been with the ABJ for decades. And one of the things that he’s told every reporter editor during his time is how important this is for the community and how important of a storyline because he’s been covering it since he was a reporter. But for 50 years, this golf course has been at risk of development. It’s been on short-term leases between the city and UT. That’s prompted an outcry because of its importance in the civil rights movement. It was the first desegregated golf course in the south and allowed black players to play there in the 1950s, which was obviously very rare. But on top of that, just the number of people who have played through there and gone through there is also very prominent. So it has this history that is very unique to Austin and the country.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:06] Okay, so let’s fast forward to last week, the city of Austin and UT announced that they are close to an agreement to transfer the land to the city. What do we know about those details?
Justin Sayers [00:22:15] Yes, as you’ve referenced, the Save Muni signs have been around for so long. The reason for that is because of this risk of development, UT has considered turning this into apartments or retails. That Lake Austin HEB that’s there is actually on land that used to be part of this, and they actually lease it to HEB. So because of that, they’ve been on rolling leases between the city that last about five months right now? So, this offers certainty for that. What it would do is it would transfer ownership to the city permanently so they would be in charge of that. In return, they would rework the rest of the acreage. That’s the land across the street that’s along the river. That would be, you know, updated with a development agreement for what they could build there. We don’t know for sure what’s going to be built there, but again, it’s been loaded as stuff that would support the university, whether it’s retail, whether it’s student housing apartments, whether it’s education facilities, that we’re all going to find out later what that might be.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:20] You alluded a little bit to the backstory and the saga of Mewni. Why exactly has it taken so long for this agreement to finally come to fruition?
Justin Sayers [00:23:28] Yeah, I think, again, they’ve been going on these short-term leases, so in 1973, I think they signed a 15-year lease and then extended it again, and it just keeps coming up and up. Where they’re operating on this five-month lease, I thinks because of the market and trying to determine what they were going to use for it, I thing right now with T’s growth, they might be right for development. Might be right to finally figure out something to do with this land that benefits the community but also is an economic driver and makes the numbers work for the university.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:06] The Save Muni campaign has been going on for nearly half a century already. Is this the final chapter of it? Where do we go next?
Justin Sayers [00:24:14] That’s a great question. I mean, we talked with the conservancy that has been running, you know, that has even offered to buy it. At one point, they were talking with UT about potentially buying it. They are overjoyed. The city still needs to figure out, you, know, the long term implementation plan. So that’s what they’re saying is going to be coming back to the to all the various boards and commissions next year about how to take care of it long term, who’s in charge of what, all that. So we’re still kind of in the early innings of this, but The fact that even a deal was reached is a significant milestone.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:49] Yeah, you mentioned that the boards and commissions next year, what is like the next immediate step in this process?
Justin Sayers [00:24:55] So it is supposed to come through to the council in November, and again that will be for updating the development agreement that was last touched in several decades ago. I can’t remember the exact date, but you know at one point when I talked to Mayor Watson, what he said was when that development agreement came together, like he said he remembers a reporter describing it as a city within a city. So it shows you, you know, how what was planned back then and what they need to change and update to make sure it’s congruous with the neighborhood and the golf course that’s across from it.
Jerry Quijano [00:25:29] All right, we have been speaking with Justin Sayers, senior staff writer at Austin Business Journal. We’ll have a link to his reporting in today’s show notes. Justin, thank you.
Justin Sayers [00:25:37] Thank you so much for highlighting this story.
Jerry Quijano [00:25:39] And thank you for spending the day here with us on Austin’s Signal. That is it for us today. We have more at kut.org slash signal. Our team is Caroline Feil, Alexandra Hart, Kristen Cabrera, and I’m your host, Jerry Quijano.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
