A second detainee wounded in last week’s shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas has died. Miguel Ángel García-Hernández, 32, was removed from life support and pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m. CT Monday, according to ICE and the League of United Latin American Citizens, which cited his wife.
García-Hernández was one of three detainees struck by gunfire on Sept. 24 when a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop, hitting an ICE van in a sally port. Another detainee, 37-year-old Norlan Guzmán-Fuente of El Salvador, died shortly after the attack. A third man, identified by a senior Department of Homeland Security official as Jose Andres Bordones-Molina of Venezuela, survived; authorities have not disclosed the extent of his injuries. No ICE officers were hurt.
Investigators say the shooter, 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, left notes indicating he was targeting ICE personnel, not detainees. He was found dead at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “It seems that he did not intend to kill the detainees or harm them,” said Nancy E. Larson, the acting US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, calling it “tragic irony” that detainees were the ones hit.
García-Hernández’s wife, Stephany Gauffeny, described him as a devoted father and provider. The couple had recently moved into their first home and were expecting their fifth child. In earlier interviews, she said her husband had been in ICE custody following a DUI and was pursuing permanent residency; an I-130 petition she filed had been initially approved, according to LULAC’s legal adviser. After the shooting, she said he was shackled in his hospital bed, suffering multiple gunshot wounds that led to a stroke.
“His death is a senseless tragedy that has left our family shattered,” she said. “I do not know how to explain to our children that their father is gone.”
DHS said responding officers encountered an active shooter “targeting immigration officials” and that, consistent with policy, ICE notified the department, the Office of Inspector General, and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility. In the aftermath, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said facilities nationwide would move to a higher alert status.
The attack has intensified scrutiny of security at immigration sites while families of the victims navigate grief and unanswered questions about how a gunman with agents in his sights ended up killing the people in their custody.
NBC News, USA Today, and ABC News contributed to this report.
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