A Mexican man living within the U.S. who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was not the person federal authorities had been targeting in a Houston operation, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said Thursday.
The Democratic congresswoman, whose district includes the Houston neighborhood where the shooting occurred, said acting ICE Director David Venturella told her the agency has confirmed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “was not a goal.”
Salgado Araujo was a homebuilder who had lived within the U.S. for greater than 35 years, had no criminal record and was near ending the long means of obtaining legal status when he was killed early Tuesday morning, in keeping with his family.
“We’ve got to do something. That is just another death too many,” Garcia said in an interview with MS Now. “And if we’ve got to bring outside, independent folks to are available and have a look at it, we must always try this.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately return an email looking for comment late Thursday.
DHS, which oversees ICE, previously said that federal officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest an individual within the country without legal status once they attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo. The agency has said Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that a federal officer fired a weapon in self-defense.
Asked whether ICE agents had been specifically targeting Salgado Araujo, DHS said earlier Thursday that officers had been surveilling a property where they’d previously observed two white vans.
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“On July 7, officers were almost on the goal’s address once they observed a white van with a person who resembled the goal. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop,” the department said.
The federal agents weren’t wearing body-worn cameras, DHS said, and few photos or videos surrounding the shooting have emerged publicly in the times because the encounter, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers.
In a press release, DHS said the agents on the scene in Houston had not yet been issued body cameras, which it blamed on Democrats and a record government shutdown that was fueled by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee, a Democrat who also represents Houston, said if the agents didn’t have the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers didn’t want them to be carrying them.
“Houston is completed accepting excuses from an agency that has more cash than it knows what to do with and still can’t manage basic accountability,” he said in a press release.
The Harris County District Attorney’s office said it will conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two U.S. residents, to find out how they’ve navigated investigations into federal immigration agents, spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.
“Although access to key evidence stays under federal control, we’re pursuing investigative avenues available to us and can conduct a review of any information we collect inside our reach,” Lemaitre said in an emailed statement.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained by ICE in the course of the fatal traffic stop, in keeping with Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Residents, who has been communicating with their families.
LULAC has yet to acquire video footage that clearly shows what happened in the course of the moments of the shooting and has offered a reward of $5,000 for information from witnesses, Proaño told The Associated Press. The position of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles has obstructed security camera footage LULAC has reviewed, he added.
“It’s going to make it even tougher to seek out the reality in all this,” he said.
DHS said the ICE agents involved within the incident were expected to receive body-worn cameras in the following 60 days.
Within the aftermath of the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats had refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol without changes to those operations designed to extend accountability and transparency. Republicans in Congress eventually passed laws funding just ICE and CBP for 3 years.
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