Each Border Report and metropolis officers say Driscoll was initially capable of get away as a result of the unit had apparently damaged down in some method. “Because of a mechanical subject, the police unit turned disabled and overlooked the suspect,” El Paso mentioned. “The next day, the El Paso Police Division was capable of find the car,” with investigators figuring out and arresting Driscoll on Jan. 4.
“Driscoll was charged with Aggravated Assault With a Lethal Weapon (1st Diploma Felony), Evading Arrest and or Detention in a Motor Car (third Diploma Felony), and Disorderly Conduct (Class B Misdemeanor),” metropolis officers mentioned within the assertion. “He was booked into the El Paso County Jail late final evening. The El Paso Police Division continues the investigation of this incident.”
Fortunately, no migrants had been bodily harmed through the incident, which comes simply weeks after the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) warned of home terror threats to teams together with migrants. At the moment, the Biden administration was planning on lifting the anti-asylum Title 42 coverage following a courtroom ruling. DHS mentioned “potential modifications in border enforcement coverage, a rise in noncitizens making an attempt to enter the U.S. or different immigration-related developments’ might heighten requires violence,” NBC Information reported.
Simply weeks earlier than that, brothers Mike and Mark Sheppard shot at a gaggle of migrants who had been “standing alongside the street getting water,” the Texas Division of Public Security mentioned. Two had been hit, with one being tragically killed. One of many brothers, Mike Sheppard, was later recognized as a former jail warden for a detention facility with a historical past of abuses in opposition to detained migrants. The state’s governor, Republican Greg Abbott, has embraced anti-immigrant insurance policies and rhetoric despite a white supremacist finishing up a bloodbath at an El Paso Walmart in 2019. That mass assassin cited a supposed “Hispanic invasion.” Texas Republicans have additionally focused Catholic humanitarian employees for aiding migrants processed and launched by U.S. federal officers.
“Investigators say they proceed to talk with doable witnesses, lots of whom are migrants who had been within the space when the incident occurred,” Border Report mentioned in its preliminary write-up. Undocumented migrants who’re victims of crime and work with regulation enforcement could possibly be eligible for sure humanitarian visas that grant everlasting standing within the U.S.