A federal grand jury has indicted Jose Santiago Pantoja-Morales, a 27-year-old Mexican national in the country illegally, who is accused of grabbing a Dallas ISD police officer's gun and shooting him in the femoral artery after the officer stopped to help him. The federal charge is possession of a firearm by an illegal alien, and the firearm is the officer's own duty weapon. That count carries a maximum of 15 years. The Texas charge he still faces carries up to life, so the state case is where the real sentence will come from.
What Happened on the LBJ Freeway on August 6?
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, Pantoja-Morales jumped out of a co-worker's car into the center median of the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in North Dallas. The co-worker flagged down Dallas ISD Officer Justin Jones, who was on routine patrol nearby. Jones picked Pantoja-Morales up to drive him somewhere safe.
During the ride, prosecutors say, Pantoja-Morales started going through the officer's bag in the back seat. Jones stopped and tried to get him out of the vehicle, and a struggle followed. Investigators say Pantoja-Morales got hold of Jones's gun and fired once, hitting him in the right leg and damaging his femoral artery. Jones got the gun back. Pantoja-Morales ran and was caught a short time later.
Jose Santiago Pantoja-Morales and the handgun prosecutors say he took from Officer Justin Jones. Red circles on the magazine and trigger area are in the original image. An indictment is an allegation, and he is presumed innocent. (U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas, public domain)
A Dallas police affidavit reported by CBS News Texas says the struggle went to the ground with Jones on top. It also says Pantoja-Morales admitted taking the gun and shooting the officer "so he could get away." Jones is 39 and, according to Breitbart, a 16-year veteran of the district's police force.
A Tourniquet and Two Units of Blood Saved His Life
Jones is alive because of the people who reached him first. NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported that a fellow Dallas ISD officer put a tourniquet on his leg. A Dallas Fire-Rescue crew that happened to be nearby then gave him a two-unit blood transfusion in the parking lot, before he ever got to Parkland Hospital.
Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Justin Ball said his crew moved in while the gunman "hadn't been neutralized." The department started its mobile blood program in early 2025 with Parkland and the American Red Cross, and it now has seven coolers of blood spread across the city. City officials credit it with an estimated 75 lives saved. Jones was home from the hospital by August 20.
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where Officer Justin Jones had emergency surgery after the August 6 shooting. (Photo by Nightryder84 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Why the Federal Count Is About the Officer's Own Gun
This is the detail most of this week's coverage mentions without explaining. Pantoja-Morales is not charged federally with shooting anyone. Shooting a local school-district officer is a state crime, not a federal one. The only federal count is 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5), which makes it a crime for someone in the country illegally to possess a firearm. The gun at issue is the one prosecutors say he pulled off Officer Jones.
In other words, the federal case rests on the seconds he allegedly held a police officer's weapon. That is enough under the statute, and it gives federal prosecutors and ATF a way into a case that would otherwise stay in state court. The maximum sentence under 18 U.S.C. 924(a)(8) is 15 years. According to the Congressional Research Service, the cap was raised from 10 years in 2022 by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
Official record
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas, press release of September 23, 2026: "Federal grand jury indicts illegal alien on firearms charge after allegedly shooting a DISD police officer." The office says the complaint was filed August 13 and the grand jury returned the indictment September 16. The indictment document itself has not been posted publicly.
"Violence against an officer will not be tolerated."
U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould
The State Charge Carries Up to Life
Dallas police filed a charge of aggravated assault against a public servant right after the shooting, and CBS News Texas reported he was held on a $500,000 bond. Under Texas Penal Code Section 22.02(b)(2)(B), aggravated assault against a public servant doing his job is a first-degree felony. Section 12.32 sets the range for a first-degree felony at 5 to 99 years, or life.
That makes the state count several times heavier than the federal one. DOJ says Pantoja-Morales is "pending transfer to federal custody" under a writ of habeas corpus it filed Wednesday. That is the paperwork federal prosecutors use to bring in a defendant who is being held somewhere else, which suggests the Dallas County case is still open. Dallas County prosecutors have not said anything publicly about how they plan to handle it. Two tracks means two chances to hold him accountable, and it also means it will matter a great deal which case goes first and how the sentences stack.
Early Reports Called Him Off Duty. The Record Says Uniformed and on Patrol
On the day of the shooting, NBC 5 ran a video under the headline "Off-duty Dallas ISD officer critically injured in shooting outside North Dallas Walmart." The police affidavit and the federal release both describe something else: a uniformed officer on routine patrol, flagged down while he was working.
That is not a minor fix. Texas law cares whether the victim was a public servant "lawfully discharging an official duty." Section 22.02(c) presumes the attacker knew the victim was a public servant if he was wearing a distinctive uniform or badge. The "off-duty" label from the first hours never matched the facts that decide how heavy the charge is. Confusion on day one of a breaking story is common, but the record has been clear since August, and it should be treated that way.
He Told Authorities He Crossed at Eagle Pass
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Daily Wire in August that Pantoja-Morales told authorities he last entered the United States by crossing the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, about four years ago. That puts his crossing around 2022, when the Del Rio Sector, which includes Eagle Pass, was one of the busiest stretches of the southern border.
Border officials brief then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Feb. 3, 2026, next to Del Rio Sector statistics and photos of earlier mass crossings. Pantoja-Morales told authorities he crossed near Eagle Pass about four years ago. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
According to the same spokesperson, ICE learned of the arrest and lodged a detainer with local authorities on Friday, August 7, the day after the shooting. The detainer asks the jail to hand him over to immigration custody when local custody ends. Texas's 2017 Senate Bill 4 made honoring those requests a legal duty for local jails, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the core of that law in 2018. In this case, that means he is supposed to be deported after his sentence, not released back onto a Dallas street.
What Comes Next
The federal case is now before a judge in the Northern District of Texas, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadin-Sarah Salkic. The next milestone is his first appearance on the indictment once the writ moves him into federal custody. On the state side, a Dallas County grand jury will need to act on the aggravated-assault charge if it has not already done so.
Justin Jones stopped his car to help a stranger walking in the median of one of the busiest freeways in Dallas. Prosecutors say that man had crossed the border illegally, went through the officer's bag, and then shot him with his own gun to get away. The 15-year federal count is only part of the case. The more important question is whether Dallas County pursues the first-degree charge all the way to a sentence that reflects what happened to an officer who stopped to help.
Top photo: A Dallas Police Department patrol SUV parked downtown, February 2025. Dallas police investigated the shooting with ATF. (Photo by Brendenmrogers via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
