ICE agent shot citizen journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias during Los Angeles arrest attempt; agency denied him counsel access and body-camera footage

On October 21, 2025, federal ICE agents attempted to arrest citizen journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias — known online as "Richard LA," with more than 100,000 TikTok followers built covering Los Angeles ICE raids — as he drove near downtown Los Angeles. Agents in unmarked vehicles boxed in his car and smashed his driver's-side window; as Parias attempted to pull away, an agent's weapon discharged, striking Parias in the elbow and also wounding a U.S. deputy marshal. Nearby agents retrieved and deleted surveillance footage of the incident from a strip mall's security system. Federal prosecutors charged Parias with assault on a federal officer, and U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli publicly described Parias as having driven aggressively at agents; NBC News reported witnesses and Parias's account differed sharply from that framing.

Parias was discharged from the hospital while still on pain medication and taken directly into federal criminal detention; at his initial hearing, a judge learned he was not receiving the ibuprofen treatment prescribed for his gunshot wound, and a U.S. marshal refused the judge's request to expedite his return to a facility that could provide it. Though later granted bond in the criminal case, Parias declined it because accepting it would have meant immediate transfer into ICE custody at a facility farther from his lawyers and family; the government transferred him into ICE detention at Adelanto, California, regardless.

In December 2025, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin dismissed the indictment against Parias with prejudice, finding that the government had denied him access to counsel while in ICE detention and had missed a court deadline to turn over body-camera footage of the shooting.

Updates

2026-08 — Parias remains in ICE detention nearly 300 days after the shooting [1]

As of mid-August 2026, despite the dismissal of the criminal case against him, Parias remained in ICE civil immigration detention at the Adelanto Processing Center, approaching 300 days in custody — among the longest documented detentions of a journalist in U.S. history. The Intercept reported Parias described receiving only over-the-counter treatment for his gunshot wound and had documented contaminated water and other conditions at the facility; Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, who visited him in May 2026, said his arm "looked like an arm that was on the verge of being amputated."