A Dallas school police officer pulled a man off a dangerous freeway median to keep him safe.
That man was in the country illegally, and he had other plans for the ride.
By the time the struggle ended, the officer was on the ground with a bullet from his own gun in his leg.
Dallas Officer Shot With His Own Gun After Stopping to Help
Officer Justin Jones, a 16-year Dallas ISD police veteran, got a call about a man walking the center median of the LBJ Freeway on Aug. 6.
The man was Jose Santiago Pantoja-Morales, a Mexican national who crossed the border illegally near Eagle Pass four years earlier.
Jones did what cops are trained to do. He got Pantoja-Morales off the freeway and drove him toward a nearby Walmart.
That decency nearly got him killed.
Prosecutors say Pantoja-Morales started digging through Jones' work bag in the back seat.
Jones pulled him out of the car to search him. Pantoja-Morales resisted, and the two men went to the ground fighting.
In the struggle, prosecutors say Pantoja-Morales ripped Jones' gun free and fired once.
The bullet tore into Jones' femoral artery – one of the largest blood vessels in the human body.
Jones somehow held on long enough for a fellow officer to apply a tourniquet at the scene.
Pantoja-Morales ran. Police caught him about a mile away with blood still on his boots.
He later admitted he shot Jones "so that he could get away," according to the arrest affidavit.
A federal grand jury indicted him Sept. 16 for possession of a firearm by an illegal alien.
"The illegal alien's alleged actions in this case represent an attack on the rule of law and a direct threat to public safety," U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said.
He's right. And this isn't an isolated case.
This Is a Pattern, Not an Accident
Two months before Pantoja-Morales allegedly shot a Texas officer, a Honduran national did almost the same thing in Virginia.
Nehemia Noel Fuentes-Banegas allegedly emerged from a wooded area in Fairfax County and grabbed an officer's gun in an attempt to disarm him.
DHS says he entered the country illegally through Texas in 2022 and was released under the Biden administration.
"This criminal illegal alien from Honduras attacked a law enforcement officer and attempted to take the officer's gun," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Go back further and the pattern gets darker.
An illegal immigrant stole a federal officer's gun out of a parked car and killed Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier in 2015.
That gun was left unsecured after a moment of trust – not unlike an officer trusting a stranger enough to offer him a ride.
Sanctuary politicians spent years insisting Steinle's death was a fluke.
Three cases in a decade say otherwise.
Sanctuary Politicians Keep Making the Next Shooting Possible
Every one of these cases traces back to the same failure.
Someone here illegally should have already been removed – and wasn't.
Texas doesn't run sanctuary policies statewide, which is exactly why Gov. Greg Abbott has gone to war with Houston and other blue cities trying to sneak them in anyway.
Abbott has threatened to strip more than $110 million from Houston alone over an ordinance limiting how long police wait for ICE to arrive.
He's pointed straight at the body count that follows when cities cut that cooperation – including the murder of Jocelyn Nungaray by illegal immigrants Houston police had already encountered.
Dallas isn't a self-declared sanctuary city. That's not the point.
The point is a man who should never have been in this country ended up alone in a squad car with an armed officer – and put a bullet in him.
Justin Jones will carry that scar because Washington and cities like it keep treating removal as optional.
Fifteen years is the max Pantoja-Morales faces if convicted of shooting a cop with the cop's own gun.
That's not justice. That's the going rate this country keeps offering people who never should have had the chance to pull the trigger.
Sources:
- Brittany Miller, "Illegal alien allegedly grabs school police officer's gun, shoots him in femoral artery: DOJ," Fox News, September 23, 2026.
- U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas, "Federal grand jury indicts illegal alien on firearms charge after allegedly shooting a DISD police officer," Department of Justice, September 2026.
- Dallas Express Staff, "New Details Emerge In Shooting Of Dallas ISD Police Officer," Dallas Express, August 11, 2026.
- Jennie Taer, "EXCLUSIVE: Suspect Accused Of Shooting Dallas Police Officer Is An Illegal Immigrant," Daily Wire, August 2026.
- Fox News Digital, "ICE lodges detainer for illegal immigrant accused of trying to disarm Virginia police officer," Fox News, July 31, 2026.
- Department of Homeland Security, "ICE Asks Virginia Sanctuary Politicians to Not Release Illegal Alien Who Tried to Disarm Police Officer in Fairfax County," DHS.gov, July 30, 2026.
- CNN, "US to deport undocumented immigrant acquitted in Kate Steinle death," CNN, December 2017.
- Daily Wire, "EXCLUSIVE: Texas Governor Greg Abbott Puts Blue Cities On Notice Over Sanctuary Policies," Daily Wire, April 2026.
- Fox News, "Abbott funding threat forces Houston to roll back sanctuary-style policy," Fox News, April 2026.
