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A Venezuelan national who was shot by an ICE officer following a vehicle pursuit in Austin earlier this month has been charged with assaulting, resisting, interfering with and impeding a federal officer, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.Federal prosecutors allege that Wilber Rafael Garces-Perez, 28, refused ICE officers’ commands to exit his vehicle during a targeted traffic stop before speeding away and striking one officer in the torso with his driver’s side-view mirror.Garces-Perez faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted, according to DOJ.According to the complaint, officers first spotted Garces-Perez’s vehicle outside a restaurant, ran its license plate and confirmed that an immigration judge had issued a final order of removal against him before initiating the stop.AUSTIN ICE SHOOTING SPARKS FIGHT OVER VENEZUELAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT’S DEPORTATIONThe accounts differ over whether the vehicles made contact as officers stopped Garces-Perez. The officer told investigators there was no contact between the vehicles, while Garces-Perez claimed the ICE SUV’s maneuver caused a collision before the officers approached him.During the encounter, Garces-Perez provided officers with his driver’s license, according to the complaint.The officers described the initial encounter as “pleasant and not aggressive,” according to the complaint. After officers instructed Garces-Perez to place the vehicle in park and step out, body camera footage shows him abruptly closing his window and driving away, according to the complaint.EXCLUSIVE: DHS SECRETARY MULLIN SLAMS SANCTUARY POLITICIANS AS ATTACKS ON ICE OFFICERS SKYROCKETGarces-Perez later told federal investigators that he disregarded the officers’ command to exit the vehicle and drove away, according to the complaint. The complaint states that he was read his Miranda rights in Spanish, said he understood them and agreed to speak with investigators without an attorney present.As he drove away, Garces-Perez’s driver’s side-view mirror struck one of the officers in the torso, according to the complaint.According to the complaint, ICE officers pursued Garces-Perez through commercial and residential areas with emergency lights and sirens activated.The officer wearing a body camera lost sight of both Garces-Perez and the second ICE officer while requesting assistance from a DPS dispatcher and then turned off his camera, according to the complaint. The second officer, who later fired his weapon, was not equipped with a body camera.DEM REACTIONS WITHIN MOMENTS OF AUSTIN ICE SHOOTING SPARK VIRAL OUTRAGE LOCALLY, ONLINE: ‘DISQUALIFYING’The second officer later called his partner and reported that Garces-Perez had attempted to strike him with his vehicle, prompting the officer to fire his service weapon, according to the complaint.Garces-Perez was struck by a bullet in his upper back, according to the complaint. He told investigators that the officer’s SUV rammed his vehicle to force it into a spinout and that, after he was shot, the officer opened his driver’s door, removed the keys from the ignition and told him to remain inside while an ambulance was en route.Garces-Perez’s immigration case has also been the subject of competing claims.Fox News previously reported that his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said the order was issued after a hearing notice was sent to an old address despite Garces-Perez having updated his address with the court.TRUMP REVIVES SUPREME COURT IMMIGRATION SHOWDOWN AFTER HOCHUL PARDON TORPEDOED FIRST CASEICE has disputed claims surrounding his immigration status, saying his work authorization expired in 2025 and that a work permit does not itself confer lawful immigration status.His attorney has said Garces-Perez remains seriously ill and has a bullet lodged in his body while being held at an ICE detention facility.Lincoln-Goldfinch, responding to the criminal complaint in a social media post, called for DHS to release the body camera footage.”The criminal complaint also provides another critical piece of information: one of the officers involved in the incident had a body camera that was turned off at some point during the pursuit. We have not seen that footage. DHS must release the body camera footage immediately and provide full transparency to the American public,” Lincoln-Goldfinch wrote.”He is now facing proceedings in both a federal criminal case and his federal immigration habeas case. We are working through what these developments mean, and we will share additional information as we are able.”DOJ said Garces-Perez made his initial appearance in federal court Tuesday.A detention hearing is scheduled for Oct. 2.

While Aaron Judge is on the shelf for the entirety of this best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox, other New York Yankees homegrown talent stepped up to take Game 1 in the Bronx on Tuesday night.It was two Massachusetts natives, Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, who played a vital role in setting the tone with a key victory to open the postseason.It’s no secret Schlitter, who hails from Walpole, Mass., has had the Red Sox’s number ever since his incredible eight-inning Game 3 performance in this same Wild Card bout last year. He came into this contest with an ERA below one, as Boston just hasn’t been able to figure him out.CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK SPORTS COVERAGESchlittler has even leaned into the villain role he plays in the Red Sox fan base’s ecosystem, poking the proverbial bear on social media. He has always been able to back up his talk with his performance on the mound, and Tuesday night was no different.Schlittler, a frontrunner for the AL Cy Young Award, got the ball from manager Aaron Boone in Game 1 because of his stellar regular season, and he shoved 6.1 innings without allowing a run, while tallying 10 strikeouts, two hits and one walk.He blew past his career-high in pitches thrown for a single outing, hitting 117, while throwing a strike at a 65.8% clip (77). In short, Schlitter owns the Red Sox, and through six starts against the Yankees’ most storied rival, he owns a 0.47 ERA across 38.2 innings with 49 strikeouts.THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!Of course, Schlittler’s performance wouldn’t matter without some offense, which was a large storyline entering the postseason, considering Judge was always on the fence in terms of making the roster. No player is allowed to join the roster midway through a series, and when the Yankees came out with theirs on Tuesday, the three-time MVP slugger wasn’t on it.Enter Rice, the 27-year-old Cohasset, Mass. native who grew up a Yankees fan in enemy territory, but he didn’t care. After having a breakout season with a career-high in home runs, he didn’t care how Red Sox fans felt when he stepped up to the plate to take advantage of big spots.Rice notched six RBI thanks to two home runs, including a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning to truly put this one out of reach for the Red Sox. He finished the night 4-for-5 with a double as well.If Judge wasn’t going to be on the roster, players like Rice would be looked upon by the organization and its fan base to come up clutch. And in Yankees terms, that means putting the ball over the wall. Rice was up for that challenge on Tuesday night, and looks like he may be ready to continue that trend moving forward.It wasn’t just these two Yankees farm system products, though, that got the job done. George Lombard Jr., in his first-ever taste of the postseason, looked like a savvy veteran at the plate, going 3-for-4 with two runs scored. Also, catcher Austin Wells got the scoring started with an RBI single and had a sacrifice fly in that eighth inning with the Rice grand slam to have a two-RBI night as he went 2-for-3 at the plate.Red Sox starter Payton Tolle lasted 4.2 innings, allowing five hits and one earned run. But the Yankees crushed the Red Sox arms after that, as they had 12 hits for the game compared to Boston’s three.While it was quite the statement game for the Yankees on home turf, the Red Sox once had the worst record in the American League this year. There is a toughness this squad can show, especially with their season on the line.That will come on Wednesday night, as the Yankees are hoping to move right to the ALDS to face another AL East foe – the AL’s best Tampa Bay Rays – with Max Fried on the bump.Boston, in a win-or-go-home scenario yet again in the Bronx, will send Sonny Gray, a former Yankees starter, to the mound in Game 2.SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY OUTKICK NEWSLETTER

Moscow Closes The Door: How Putin & Lavrov Hardened Russia’s Line On Ukraine In Ten Days

Authored by Larry C. Johnson via SonarIntelligence (Sonar21),

In mid-September, the Kremlin was signaling that negotiations could resume. Putin had said the trilateral talks with the United States and Ukraine would be unlikely before the State Duma elections, but that Russia would be ready to resume contacts after them. The elections ended on September 20. Within a week, both Putin and Lavrov had shifted from conditional openness to a set of positions that make a negotiated end to the war harder to reach than at any point this year.

The trigger: September 20

The turning point was Ukraine’s drone campaign on election day. Putin said more than 1,600 drones entered the Moscow area that night, with strikes on polling stations, including one in a school he said was virtually destroyed. The chair of a territorial election commission was killed when her home was hit. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the raid unprecedented. According to RT, two civilians were killed in the suburbs and an oil refinery was damaged. Whatever one makes of Russian accounts of the damage, the political effect in Moscow was plain.

Putin: from “ready after the elections” to “we will think twice”

At his press conference in St. Petersburg on September 25, Putin recast the whole negotiating track. He listed a series of Ukrainian escalations: the strike on St. Petersburg’s port during the June economic forum, a campaign against Russian refineries, an attempted blockade of Russia’s Black Sea coast that he said damaged more than 100 vessels, and strikes on commercial warehouses. He said Russia had answered each one, so effectively that Kyiv is now seeking partial ceasefires in the energy sector and the air.

Putin didn’t treat those requests as an opening. He treated them as proof that Russian pressure is working. His message to Kyiv was that no provocation or escalation will get it what it wants, and that it is only making its own situation worse. Then came the key passage. The proposals, he said, remain on the table, but after everything Ukraine has done, Russia “will think twice” about how to respond. Any decision, including whether to resume the negotiations, will be based on Russia’s interests.

That is a marked change from ten days earlier. Putin didn’t close the door to talks, but he removed the implied commitment to resume them after the elections, and made any resumption depend on Russia’s own assessment of what it has to gain.

Lavrov at the Security Council: no pause “in any format”

Lavrov made the position explicit in New York on September 23. Speaking to a Security Council meeting on Ukraine, he said: “Having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause the special military operation for the period of negotiations in any format.” He said European countries wanted a pause to buy time to replenish Ukraine’s depleted arsenals. He dismissed a pre-agreement ceasefire as not serious and insisted that the goal is a long-term settlement.

The timing made it a direct rebuff. That same day, Ukraine and 51 supporters released a statement demanding that Russia accept an immediate and unconditional ceasefire so talks could begin. Its signatories included the EU and its member states, the UK, Canada and Australia. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, noted that 14 of the 15 Security Council members had backed ceasefire proposals in one form or another, leaving Russia alone.

Lavrov went further than ceasefire mechanics. He said Ukraine would have kept its 1991 borders if the Europeans had not “engaged in their shenanigans.” That frames the loss of Ukrainian territory as permanent and places the blame on Europe. It is not the language of a government preparing to negotiate over the lines of control.

Lavrov at the General Assembly: Europe as the enemy

In his General Assembly speech on September 26, Lavrov made Europe the central threat. He said the EU is militarizing for war with Russia, and that a buildup on that scale could eventually lead to a conflict. He suggested Germany’s pursuit of military primacy could be seen as an attempt to create a “Fourth Reich.” At his press conference afterward, he argued that a European buildup must eventually be used, “because we are not planning to” attack. He called European war preparations a possible “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The effect is to rule Europe out as a negotiating party. Lavrov has told the Europeans that they are the ones preparing a war, that their calls for a ceasefire are a device to rearm Ukraine, and that they destroyed the chance of a settlement on Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Moscow now treats only the United States as a legitimate interlocutor.

Even the U.S. channel produced nothing

After meeting Lavrov in New York, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said both Russia and Ukraine had shown interest in a limited ceasefire covering energy infrastructure and grain shipping, but admitted an agreement would not be easy. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not confirm any agreement, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were currently no conditions for moving toward a peace track, although Russia remained open to talks.

Putin’s own assessment of the U.S. relationship was cool. He welcomed the Trump-Xi talks in Washington, but said Russia’s relations with the United States had been reduced almost to zero, contrasting that with $240 billion in annual trade with China.

Pressure at sea, in the air and on the ground

The diplomatic hardening is matched by rising military pressure on three fronts at once. Moscow is not waiting for talks. It is using the interval to raise the cost to Ukraine of refusing Russia’s terms.

At sea, Russia has reimposed a de facto blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. It has not brought its warships back to Ukraine’s coast as it did in 2022; it has used missiles and drones against ports and merchant ships instead. After strikes in mid-July, including the sinking of the bulk carrier Golden Leo, shipowners and insurers pulled back, and traffic through Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi collapsed. On September 12, Russia hit the Odesa region with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and 129 drones, and said it struck two cargo ships at Chornomorsk that it claimed were delivering weapons. Ukraine’s acting foreign minister has accused Moscow of trying to turn the Black Sea into a “second Strait of Hormuz.” In St. Petersburg, Putin listed the lifting of the blockade among the concessions Kyiv is seeking, and made clear he is in no hurry to grant it.

In the air, Russia has intensified strikes on Kyiv and other major cities, aimed at transport, production, power, water and communications. On September 23, the day Lavrov spoke at the Security Council, hours of drone attacks on Kyiv hit railway infrastructure, warehouses and fuel stations, killing at least two people and injuring more than 30. Zelensky said Russia used large numbers of drones, including faster jet-powered models. Strikes have also hit power, water and internet networks, partially suspending water service on Kyiv’s left bank. Earlier in September, Russia struck Kyiv and southern and eastern Ukraine six nights in a row. With winter approaching, the grid is becoming a front of its own. Zelensky raised an energy-infrastructure truce with Trump at the UN; Moscow has not accepted it.

On the ground, Russian forces are attacking along the entire line of contact, and Russia is advancing while Ukraine gives ground. Ukraine’s own General Staff reported 277 combat engagements on September 24, from the Sloviansk and Kramatorsk sectors in northern Donetsk to Huliaipole in the south, with the heaviest assaults around Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk. Russian forces took Shirokoe and Shevchenkovo in the Kharkiv region and Novoandreevka in the Zaporizhzhia region on September 14, and Olkhovatka in the Kharkiv region, within an encirclement, the next day. Every day of stalled diplomacy is another day of this pressure.

What this adds up to

Taken together, the statements of the past ten days set out a harder Russian position:

Talks resume only on Moscow’s timetable and on its judgment of its own interests, not as the promised follow-up to the elections.
No ceasefire of any kind during negotiations, including the unconditional ceasefire backed by more than 50 countries.
Ukraine’s requests for partial truces are treated as evidence that Russian pressure is working, not as openings.
Europe is cast as the aggressor, excluded as a partner, and blamed for the loss of Ukraine’s territory.
Military pressure rising on every axis: a de facto blockade of Ukraine’s ports, intensified strikes on Kyiv’s infrastructure, and assaults along the entire front.
The direction is clear. In mid-September, Moscow was talking about when negotiations would resume. By September 26, it was talking about whether it wanted them at all, and on what terms

I discussed prospects for a Russia – NATO war with Lena Petrova:

Nima and I discuss Iran’s latest strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz:

Sulaiman and I discuss, among other things, confirmation that the reports of additional US Navy and Marine casualties were the result of Iranian strikes on US vessels:

Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/29/2026 – 23:25