{"id":1007667,"date":"2026-08-18T01:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T01:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007667\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T01:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T01:44:16","slug":"family-of-l-a-man-killed-by-ice-agent-seeks-grand-jury-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007667\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of L.A. man killed by ICE agent seeks grand jury investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The family of a Los Angeles man who was shot and killed by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on New Year\u2019s Eve<\/a> is asking for the case to be brought before a grand jury.<\/p>\n

After a meeting with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman on Monday afternoon, the family of Keith Porter Jr. said they asked the county\u2019s top law enforcement official to leave the decision of whether the ICE agent should face criminal charges to a panel of county residents.<\/p>\n

Porter, 43, was allegedly firing a gun into the air to celebrate the new year in the courtyard of his Northridge apartment complex when he was confronted by his neighbor Brian Palacios. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security initially described Porter as an \u201cactive shooter,\u201d though no one else was injured that night. <\/p>\n

Porter\u2019s relatives and their attorney, Jamal Tooson, have repeatedly said Porter was no threat to anyone. Police said they recovered a rifle from the scene after Porter was killed. A law enforcement official previously told The Times that detectives found evidence of two bullet impacts behind where Palacios was standing at the time of the shooting, supporting claims that Porter had fired at him.<\/p>\n

Tooson has claimed a neighbor\u2019s Ring camera captured audio evidence from the shooting. The recording will show Palacios did not identify himself as law enforcement, according to Tooson.<\/p>\n

Tooson said Monday he believed that presenting the case to a grand jury \u201cwould be the best path, moving forward, toward getting justice.\u201d He told reporters that Hochman offered no timetable for a decision on charging Palacios during the meeting, saying he was still in the early stages of his review of the Dec. 31, 2025, incident. <\/p>\n

Normally, cases in which police seriously injure or kill people are presented for review to the Justice Systems Integrity Division inside the district attorney\u2019s office, which then decides whether charges are warranted. If prosecutors were to present the case to a grand jury, a prosecutor would still have to believe there was probable cause a crime was committed before arguing for an indictment.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the district attorney\u2019s office didn\u2019t rule out the unorthodox move and called on more witnesses in the case to come forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand how difficult this has been for Keith Porter\u2019s family. While we typically don\u2019t meet with families this early in an investigation, given the high-profile nature of this case and at the request of the attorneys representing Mr. Porter\u2019s family, we made it a priority to connect,\u201d the statement read. \u201cWe will continue our meticulous review of the evidence, the facts, and the law to reach a final determination.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tooson said that there are no eyewitnesses to the shooting and that Porter\u2019s death was not captured on video. <\/p>\n

Porter was one of several U.S. citizens killed by ICE agents in the last year. The other shootings, which occurred while the officers were on duty, have sparked growing backlash and concerns about the agency\u2019s willingness to use deadly force while enforcing President Trump\u2019s immigration policies. <\/p>\n

Two months before Porter\u2019s death, an ICE agent claimed he was afraid for his life when he opened fire on a popular TikTok streamer<\/a> in South L.A. and accidentally injured a U.S. Marshal in the process. Assault charges against the streamer were later dismissed by a judge. <\/p>\n

Within weeks of Porter\u2019s death, ICE agents gunned down Renee Good and Alex Pretti in confrontations in Minneapolis, with both slayings drawing national outrage. <\/p>\n

The Times identified Palacios as Porter\u2019s killer this year. Court records show he\u2019d been previously accused of child abuse and making racist remarks.<\/a> His attorney, Stacie Halpern, has denied her client made any improper remarks and said the child abuse allegations were deemed unfounded by both the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services and police. <\/p>\n

Palacios was also accused of threatening a man with criminal charges in May who he erroneously believed leaked his name to the media. <\/a> Records show an attempt to gain a restraining order over the alleged threats ultimately failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a Los Angeles man who was shot and killed by an off-duty U.S. Immigration and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1007668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[12854,339356,1582,276,6517,4446,25175,246,403384,14443,224874,2961,224,5337,146035,43387,7207,35727,101,403385],"class_list":["post-1007667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-attorney","tag-brian-palacios","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-case","tag-death","tag-evidence","tag-family","tag-grand-jury-investigation","tag-ice-agent","tag-jamal-tooson","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-monday-afternoon","tag-new-year","tag-police","tag-porter","tag-shooting","tag-top-law-enforcement-official"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117113983033067029","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}