(The Hill) — Houston Mayor John Whitmire (D) said Friday that city officials “will not rest” until the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal officer is examined through a “thorough and independent” investigation.
Speaking at an afternoon press conference, Whitmire said he has instructed Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz to pursue the case proactively, signaling that the city intends to press ahead with its own review of the latest deadly encounter tied to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The mayor, however, conceded that the city’s efforts have been complicated by the fact that federal authorities currently have control of the key evidence, including the van, the passengers and Salgado Araujo’s body.
“The FBI has all the evidence that would normally go into an HPD or other law enforcement agency’s investigation,” Whitmire said. “And they’re tightly controlling it.”
Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer during a traffic stop shortly before 7 a.m. local time Tuesday. Federal officials have since acknowledged that the stop involved a case of mistaken identity.
Salgado Araujo, who had lived and worked in the Houston area for nearly 35 years, was driving members of his construction crew to a job site when ICE officers pulled over his vehicle. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the stop as part of a “targeted enforcement operation to arrest an illegal alien.”
DHS alleged that Salgado Araujo tried to flee and used his vehicle as a weapon, a version of events that passengers in the van have disputed. He was struck in the abdomen and later died from his injuries at a hospital.
“At no point did they ever use the van to ram into the ICE agents, and at no point were these ICE agents’ lives ever in any danger,” Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, an attorney for the family, said in a video posted to Instagram on Friday.
Salgado Araujo’s death sparked uproar in the Houston community, which is home to nearly 2.4 million residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino. Hundreds of people marched in the Magnolia Park neighborhood on Wednesday evening to protest ICE’s presence in the city, according to Houston Public Media.
“Lord, we’ve done everything we can to keep ICE from endangering Houston residents,” Whitmire said, later calling the federal agency “out of control.”
Diaz has a meeting with the chief of the FBI Houston bureau next week in hopes that the agency will “start sharing information” with local police and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, according to the mayor.
“Our hands have been tied, but I’ve instructed the chief [and] city attorney to untie those hands,” Whitmire said.
The district attorney’s office has launched its own probe into the incident, which lead attorney Sean Teare said is routine in any officer-involved shooting. But he said during a separate press conference on Friday that his office needs more cooperation from the federal government.
“I have the utmost hope that the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Inspector General who are conducting this investigation will share evidence with us,” Teare said. “Regardless of whether they do or not, we will got to the ends of the Earth to collect all the evidence so that we can eventually let the public know what happened.”
Local prosecutors have asked the community to come forward with any information or video footage they may have of the incident, as there is no available body camera or dash camera video.
