Charlotte man says Border Patrol agents injured him as he drove for groceries

Cristobal Maltos said he was driving to a grocery store around 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. Nov. 17 when a hit-and-run driver came out of nowhere and sideswiped him.

“I followed him and was on the phone with the police,” Maltos, 24, told The Charlotte Observer on Thursday. “I gave them the license plate number.”

What happened next landed him in a hospital, he said, and the filing of wrongful charges against him by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

His encounter with a swarm of federal agents came during a five-day federal immigration enforcement operation dubbed “Charlotte’s Web” that officials say resulted in about 370 arrests in the Charlotte area. The Department of Homeland Security has not released most names of people taken.

Agents accused Maltos of following them as they conducted stops and arrests Monday, according to a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. He reversed his car when U.S. Border Patrol agents first tried to make contact with him, officials said.

Three Border Patrol cars and five agents surrounded Maltos when he later began following them, according to the complaint.

The agents asked him for 30 seconds to roll down his window, court records show. An officer “leaned over the hood of the vehicle on the front drivers’ side.” Then Maltos’ car moved forward 30 feet, its side mirror hitting an officer, officials alleged. Then the car reversed slowly, and officers smashed the driver’s side window, opened the door and removed Maltos, according to court documents.

Body camera shows the encounter, according to the complaint.

Agents said they read Maltos his Miranda rights, which he waived, according to court documents. “Maltos eventually admitted he moved the vehicle forward in first gear” and “claimed he was in shock and was trying to get away, but did not admit striking the officer,” documents say.

Maltos was jailed on charges of felony assault, resisting arrest and impeding a federal officer. He was released on a $25,000 unsecured bond.

“Everybody’s saying I had run him over, assaulted a federal officer,” Maltos told the Observer in a phone interview. “That’s not true. I want everybody to know the truth of what happened.”

Driver says federal narrative is false

As the large hit-and-run vehicle made a U-turn, another unmarked SUV suddenly appeared and blocked both lanes. He soon realized it was ICE, he said.

While he was still on the phone with police, describing what was happening, he said agents with weapons drawn approached his Honda Accord.

He said he backed up to be safe, and the agents returned to their vehicles.

At the next intersection, Arrowood Road and South Tryon Street, a third unmarked vehicle sped ahead to cut him off, he said.

The vehicle stopped in the middle of the intersection and blocked both lanes, he said. A sedan was parked behind him.

“Within seconds, I was trapped between three unmarked ICE vehicles,” Maltos said on a GoFundMe page he said he started primarily to get the truth out about the incident.

About 10 agents surrounded his car, he said. “I was terrified and in shock,” he said. “My car stalled when I accidentally released the clutch — I drive a manual vehicle — but before I could process anything, the agents rushed me.”

Glass sprayed into his face and eyes when agents broke both front windows, he said. They shattered his mirror, dented his door and used a crowbar to pry it open.”

Maltos said he was still strapped in his seatbelt.

“When they finally unbuckled me, I told them I had recently undergone surgery and that I was a U.S. citizen,” he said. “One agent responded, ‘I don’t care.’”

He said the agents threw him onto the asphalt, which was covered in broken glass, “causing even more injuries.” Then they dragged him into one of the SUVs, he said.

“At one point, I was told they were ‘two seconds from shooting me,’” he said.

Maltos said he was taken to the FBI office in Charlotte and then to the Gaston County jail. He said he is an American citizen born in Chicago and raised in Charlotte.

“I never imagined I would experience what happened to me,” he said.

He was injured and “emotionally traumatized,” he said, left “struggling to understand why this happened to me in my own country.”

This story was originally published November 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.