ICE Shot a Journalist and Threw Him in Detention. He’s Approaching 300 Days Behind Bars With a Festering Wound.

In a desolate California desert, detained journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias contemplates his grim situation in a small cell. He sips from a plastic bottle, gazing at wriggling worms in his drinking water, while his leg endures a purple discoloration caused by a gunshot wound that remains unhealed. Parias, a Los Angeles-based journalist, has been held in ICE detention for over 300 days, a record for a journalist detained by the U.S. government.

On October last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Parias after he filmed a raid in South LA. Witnesses reported that a federal agent deliberately struck him with a vehicle, leaving him on the sidewalk as the agents continued their operations. Despite his cries for help, medical care was never administered. A Good Samaritan eventually took Parias to the hospital, albeit still handcuffed.

Four months later, Parias was struck by multiple unmarked vehicles driven by masked federal agents, who shot him in the elbow without warning. Agents retrieved surveillance footage from a nearby strip mall, deleted it, and charged Parias with assault on a federal officer. The narrative presented by the prosecution excluded crucial context, portraying Parias as an evasive fugitive who had escalated a minor arrest into a dangerous confrontation.

Federal authorities charged Parias despite the absence of evidence. His teenage son, barred from communicating with his father since the shooting, desperately hugged the lawyer during his initial hearing, pleading for his release. However, U.S. marshals denied his request, citing security protocols. Parias, still on morphine, was transferred to a federal criminal detention center without proper medication for his gunshot wound, exacerbating his pain and discomfort.