Carlos Jimenez, the U.S. citizen an ICE officer shot in Ontario, California, last October, has sued the officers and San Bernardino County for more than $25 million, four days after his assault charge was dismissed.
The complaint, filed November 6 in the Central District of California and described in detail by Newsweek, runs 54 pages and pleads 13 claims, among them excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution and denial of medical care. The defendants are Eusebio Ortiz, the ICE deportation officer who fired, CBP officers listed as N. Jimenez and S. Cosey, Estevan R. Banuelos of the FBI, San Bernardino County and 20 unnamed defendants. The demand breaks down as $25 million for pain and suffering and other non-economic harm, and close to $179,000 more for medical bills, lost pay and property damage. None of the claims has been tested in court.
The government's first account, read closely
The case against Jimenez began with a five-page criminal complaint filed in Riverside the day after the shooting. We read all of it. It is the government's earliest sworn version of events, and its shape is worth noticing now that a civil jury may one day hear the other side.
The affidavit has 12 numbered paragraphs. It was sworn by a Homeland Security Investigations special agent whose regular assignment, the affidavit says, is the Child Exploitation Investigations Group in Corona. It says a three-officer team stopped a Honda Accord heading south on Vineyard Avenue at about 6:29 a.m., that a Lexus RX350 driven by Jimenez pulled alongside, and that Jimenez "engaged in a verbal altercation with the officers." Officer "E.O." approached "with his firearm in hand," told Jimenez to leave, then holstered the gun and took out pepper spray.
Paragraph 10 is the heart of the charge. It says the Lexus pulled forward, stopped, turned its wheels "and then rapidly accelerated in reverse back toward Officer N.J. and the Honda."
The shooting itself is not in any numbered paragraph. It appears in footnote 1, which reads in full: "At approximately this time, Officer E.O. fired a shot from his firearm and struck JIMENEZ in the shoulder." The footnote goes on to say Jimenez drove away, "later checked himself into a hospital," and was taken into custody after he was medically cleared.
Three details stand out against the civil complaint. The footnote describes one shot, while the lawsuit, as Newsweek summarized it, alleges Ortiz fired "several rounds" through a rear window. The initials E.O., N.J. and S.C. line up with the three enforcement officers now named as defendants. And the caption spells the defendant's name "JIMINEZ," a spelling the affidavit repeats once in its second paragraph before switching to "JIMENEZ" for the rest.
What each side says happened
The Department of Homeland Security has said Jimenez "attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping," according to a Globe report republished by Yahoo News. His lawyers say he approached the officers "calmly and slowly" to warn them that children would soon be waiting for a school bus close by. In their telling he was in the middle of a three-point turn, already rolling forward, when bullets hit his back and right shoulder.
The lawsuit adds allegations that go beyond the shooting. It says FBI agents pulled Jimenez from his hospital bed for questioning before bullet fragments were removed, and that Banuelos attributed statements to two neighbors who later told a defense investigator they never made them. The FBI said it "cannot comment on pending litigation," Newsweek reported. DHS also declined to comment on the suit.
Our timeline, with day counts
October 30, 2025: The shooting on Vineyard Avenue. Day 0.
October 31, 2025: Criminal complaint filed under 18 U.S.C. 111, assault on a federal officer. Day 1.
November 5, 2025: Rep. Norma Torres writes to the acting ICE director and the FBI director asking whether the officers wore body cameras. Day 6.
November 18, 2025: Grand jury indictment, per Newsweek. Day 19.
Early May 2026: U.S. District Judge Kenly Kiya Kato orders the government to produce communications, including from the officer's phones, and a sworn declaration from Ortiz if none exist. Around the same time, a diversion agreement replaces the trial track, the San Bernardino County Sentinel reported.
November 2, 2026: Kato dismisses the indictment with prejudice after Jimenez completes diversion. The order makes no finding about the force used. Day 368.
November 6, 2026: Civil complaint filed. Day 372.
Why the suit came when it did
Our reading of the timing points to the Federal Tort Claims Act. A person who wants to sue the United States for the wrongful acts of federal employees must first file an administrative claim with the agency, and under 28 U.S.C. 2675 may go to court once the agency denies it or six months pass without a decision. Jimenez's civil lawyer, Greg Jackson, told the Sentinel in an article dated May 8 that he had filed "the government claims about two weeks ago," for $35 million. Counting six months from late April lands in late October 2026, days before the suit was filed. The same statute generally caps a lawsuit at the amount of the administrative claim, and $25 million sits under the $35 million figure. The public reports do not say which claims rest on the tort act, so this is our inference from the dates, not a reading of the complaint.
The individual officers are a harder target. Damages suits against federal agents personally rely on Bivens, a doctrine the Supreme Court has declined to extend again and again, most pointedly for a Border Patrol agent in 2022. We counted those refusals in our story on Nielsen v. Watanabe, argued on Monday. The county, named over Jimenez's medical care at the West Valley Detention Center, faces a different set of civil rights rules.
What to watch
The defendants' first response is the next marker. In federal court that usually means a motion to dismiss, and the government's answer to the Bivens claims will show whether it plans to fight the case on doctrine before facts. Jackson also told the Sentinel that the diversion deal contained "no condition whatsoever" barring a civil suit. Texas took a different route last month, when a Harris County grand jury indicted an ICE officer under state law.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
