Prosecutors want to toss federal charges in Charlotte Border Patrol case
Federal prosecutors want to dismiss a felony charge against a man accused of assaulting Border Patrol agents in Charlotte last month.
The man denied assaulting officers and said they came after him.
If Cristobal Maltos’ charge is dismissed, it will be at least the third time a federal judge has tossed a felony charge filed in relation to the Department of Homeland Security’s federal immigration operation in Charlotte.
The FBI, in a sworn criminal complaint, said Maltos, 24, hit a Customs and Border Protection officer with the side mirror of his black Honda Civic on Nov. 17 — the third day of the immigration operation led by U.S. Border Patrol supervisor Gregory Bovino. For a week in mid-November, masked agents in unmarked SUVs questioned and arrested people in public places across Charlotte. They focused especially on south and east Charlotte communities.
The FBI agent’s report claimed immigration officers stopped and blocked Maltos when he followed them along North Tryon Street. As three cars and five federal officers surrounded his car, they spent 30 seconds asking him to roll down the window, according to the report. One agent leaned over the hood of the car and was hit with the driver’s side mirror when the car moved forward, the FBI said. Federal officials on Nov. 18 charged Maltos with felony assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer.
Maltos was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing — where a judge would determine probable cause — next week. The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Tuesday filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss it entirely.
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina last week dropped a similar felony charge filed against Miguel Angel Garcia Martinez. Video played during his preliminary hearing revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents planned to “smash” into Martinez as he fled after they tried to stop him from following and documenting their operations.
In the United States, Americans have the right to film the police in public.
Prosecutors also dismissed felony charges against a protester they said assaulted federal agents, but they later filed misdemeanor charges against her, instead.
Maltos, in an interview with the Observer last month, said he was on his way to the grocery store when a car sideswiped him. He followed, and then federal agents surrounded him. He said his car stalled, and he accidentally released the clutch. Agents surrounded his car and broke his window, shattering glass into his face and eyes, he said. Then they threw him on the ground.
“I told them I had recently undergone surgery and that I was a U.S. citizen,” Maltos told the Observer.
According to Maltos, agents told him they didn’t care and warned that they were “two seconds away” from shooting him. Video played during Martinez’s hearing revealed ICE agents also threatened to shoot him as he fled.
In Chicago, a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot a woman five times and injured her.
Melissa Owen, one of Maltos’ three court-appointed attorneys, told the Observer in an email: “Dismissal is the only appropriate outcome in this case.”
The spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson would not say whether prosecutors plan to bring a different charge against Maltos. In a statement, the spokesperson said: “sometimes charges are added and sometimes charges are dropped, but in all cases we allow the legal process to play out.”
