By CLAIRE RUSH
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man shot and wounded by a Border Patrol agent during an immigration stop in Portland, Oregon, last week pleaded not guilty Wednesday to aggravated assault on a federal employee and damaging federal property.
Luis David Nino-Moncada’s public defender entered the plea on his behalf during a hearing in U.S. District Court. He was indicted on the charges Tuesday and remains in custody, with a release hearing scheduled for next week. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman set a five-day jury trial for March.
The shooting, which came one day after a federal agent shot and killed a driver in Minneapolis, prompted protests over federal agents’ aggressive tactics during immigration enforcement operations.
The FBI said in a court filing that it had found no surveillance or other video of the shooting, in which a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded Nino-Moncada and passenger Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras while they were in a pickup truck in the parking lot of a medical complex. The Department of Homeland Security has said the two people entered the U.S. illegally and were affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Portland Police Chief Bob Day confirmed last week that the pair had “some nexus” to the gang. He said the two came to the attention of police during an investigation of a July shooting believed to have been carried out by gang members but they were not identified as suspects.
Zambrano-Contreras was previously arrested for prostitution, Day said, and Nino-Moncada was present when a search warrant was served in that case.
Border Patrol agents told investigators that one of their colleagues opened fire after Nino-Moncada put the truck in reverse and repeatedly slammed into an unoccupied car the agents had rented, smashing its headlights and knocking off its front bumper.
FBI Special Agent Daniel Jeffreys wrote in an affidavit supporting the charges that Nino-Moncada used the vehicle as a weapon. The agents feared for their own safety and that of the public, the document said.
Zambrano-Contreras was being held Wednesday at a private immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, according to an online detainee locator system maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces a charge of illegal entry into the U.S., which federal prosecutors in Texas filed last week. The federal public defender’s office for the Western District of Texas did not respond to a request for comment.
