HOUSTON – Six days after an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said federal authorities still haven’t been fully transparency or answered questions about what happened.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is conducting an independent investigation into the fatal shooting. Teare said identifying the ICE agents involved is a priority.
“Again, every avenue of investigation, from surveillance to eyewitnesses, to asking the public for help, not just at the scene of this shooting, we have to go backwards,” Teare said. “We have to find locations and places these agents were before. We are doing everything we can to identify these agents.”
Officials told KPRC 2 that Salgado Araujo died at Ben Taub Hospital after he was shot in the right side of his body on July 7.
On the day of the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security said Salgado Araujo rammed one of their vehicles and attempted to run over an ICE agent, prompting the agent to fire his weapon in self-defense.
Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia said witness accounts from the three other men who were in the van with Salgado Araujo that day contradict the DHS report.
“Their accounts are totally different, day and night, from what ICE is telling the public,” said Garcia, who represents Texas’ 29th Congressional District. “Every time new facts are revealed, it is always contradictory to their playbook storyline of weaponizing the car and the officer shooting in self-defense.”
The three witnesses -- including Salgado Araujo’s brother -- were part of his construction crew. They were all detained by ICE and taken to the agency’s Conroe facility. Family and some advocates have expressed concern that the detainees who saw what happened are being pressured to self-deport. League of United Latin American Citizens CEO Juan Proaño says they need to remain on U.S. soil and expressed hope that Teare will help make that happen.
“We are very happy and encouraged by his efforts to protect these witnesses,” Proaño said.
Teare echoed that commitment.
“Rest assured there is no avenue that we are not going to go down in order to get a full and complete picture of what happened,” he said.
Both Teare and Proaño said the case will be taken to district and federal court judges if federal authorities do not provide full transparency.
Meanwhile, Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz is scheduled to meet with the FBI on July 14 to review the case. On Wednesday, LULAC is calling for a national call to action.