Federal judge dismisses indictment against TikTok streamer who was shot by ICE

A federal judge in California dismissed an indictment against a Los Angeles TikTok creator who was shot by an ICE agent during an arrest attempt earlier this year, citing a violation of the man’s constitutional rights by the federal government. 

In an order on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the detention of Carlitos Ricardo Parias in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility deprived him of his ability to communicate with legal counsel ahead of his criminal trial, which was slated for Tuesday. 

Olguin also cited the government’s failure to meet key discovery deadlines in the case, including the release of the body camera footage worn by the ICE officer who shot Parias during an immigration enforcement operation in Southern Los Angeles in October. That video was released on Dec. 10, more than a month after Parias’ initial detention hearing, according to the order. 

Parias, who goes by Richard LA on TikTok, is a 44-year-old creator who amassed a following of more than 130,000 viewers on the platform by documenting law enforcement and immigration operations in the Los Angeles area. His videos narrate the events in Spanish. 

Homeland Security officials had accused Parias of living in the country illegally and attempted to arrest him near his Los Angeles home on Oct. 21. Federal agents with ICE and the U.S. Marshal’s service boxed in Parias’ car and broke his windows. One armed ICE officer tried to open the front passenger door through the shattered window before opening fire and shooting Parias in the arm, according to the order. The ricochet bullet injured a deputy U.S. marshal.

That afternoon, the government filed a criminal complaint accusing Parias of assaulting a federal officer, alleging that he rammed his car into the agent’s vehicles while trying to escape the arrest. Parias was indicted by a grand jury in November. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not comment on the dismissal of the indictment. Parias’ legal counsel and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California also did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Though Parias no longer faces criminal charges, he could remain in ICE detention for the duration of his immigration case proceeding.

In his 28-page order, Olguin slammed the federal government for failing to “coordinate the overlapping actions of its separate agencies while relentlessly pursuing Mr. Parias’s criminal proceedings,” which he said “created a situation from which constitutional violations could — and did — occur.”

Parias spent a week in the hospital recovering from his injuries related to the shooting. He was then held in jail under custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Service. In late November, a judge ordered that he be released on bail, but Parias was immediately detained and transferred to the Adelanto ICE processing facility upon his release. 

The facility is located in San Bernardino County, California, nearly two hours away from the downtown Los Angeles office where Parias’ public defenders are. The distance, and limits on telephone communication within the ICE facility, prevented Parias from communicating with his defense team in the month leading up to his trial date. 

Olguin added that “the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not coordinate with ICE to resolve the access to counsel issue during the nascent stages of Mr. Parias’ criminal proceedings.” Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, is an interim appointee of President Donald Trump. A federal judge in October ruled that Essayli had been illegally appointed to the position, adding him to a laundry list of Trump’s top federal prosecutors who have been disqualified from serving. 

Parias’ indictment was dismissed with prejudice, which prevents the federal government from filing the same assault charges against him in the future.