Immigration and Customs Enforcement is under fresh scrutiny after officials confirmed that a Houston father of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier this month did not have drugs inside his vehicle.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed around 7am on July 7 while heading to work, after authorities said he allegedly attempted to avoid being taken into custody during a traffic stop.
An FBI search warrant filed after the deadly encounter stated that investigators had observed small clear plastic baggies containing white, “crystal-like” material inside the van Salgado Araujo was driving.
The warrant described the packaging as appearing to be “consistent with methamphetamine.”
However, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office told the Daily Mail on Friday that testing showed the substance recovered from Salgado Araujo’s van was negative for narcotics and illegal drugs.
“We have notified Salgado Araujo’s family because we felt they had the right to know,” the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said.
Houston Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia said the material found in the vehicle was actually “an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer.”
‘The attempt to cast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado’s name has failed,’ Garcia wrote Friday afternoon on X.
Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was fatally shot by an ICE officer after authorities said he tried to evade arrest during a traffic stop that turned deadly
An FBI search warrant said small, clear plastic bags with white, ‘crystal-like substances’ and packaging ‘consistent with methamphetamine’ had been found inside Salgado Araujo’s van
A lawyer representing Salgado Araujo’s brother, Victor, had said Thursday that the substance was granulated salt, according to KCRA.
Ruby Powers, the attorney, said the product was ‘paired with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte mix used by outdoor workers in extreme Texas heat, not methamphetamine or any other illicit substance.’
Victor was one of the passengers in the van when Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who worked as a homebuilder, was shot by a federal officer.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said that Salgado Araujo’s wife prepared the electrolyte mixes for his work crew every morning.
‘This is something they’ve been doing for years, which is consistent with where the baggies were found,’ Teare told CNN.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, wrote July 7 on X that Salgado had ‘attempted to evade arrest’ during the vehicle stop.
The agency said that, based on ‘information we are receiving,’ Salgado Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle and refused to follow verbal commands.
Salgado Araujo also ‘weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer,’ the DHS added.
That led to the officer, who has not been named, firing his weapon in self-defense, according to the agency.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office said Friday that the substance in Salgado Araujo’s vehicle had tested negative for narcotics and illicit drugs
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Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia said on X that what Salgado Araujo had was ‘an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer’
The officers involved in the shooting that led to Salgado Araujo’s death were not wearing body cameras at the time, according to the Associated Press.
Footage of the moment Salgado Araujo was shot has not emerged. However, witnesses have pushed back on the government’s account.
A rear passenger in the van, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, filed a written statement in a Houston federal court claiming that Salgado Araujo ‘had come to a full stop while the agents fired,’ per the Texas Tribune.
Pantoja claimed that ‘at no moment were the agents in front’ of the van.
Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, who was also in the back seat, alleged in his statement that a patrol vehicle had chased the group, but that Salgado Araujo believed he had lost them.
‘Out of nowhere, they suddenly cornered us and we told Lorenzo to stop the van,’ Rojas Pliego wrote, according to the outlet.
He claimed: ‘When Lorenzo stopped the van, the officer shot him anyway.’
Rojas Pliego alleged that it was ‘impossible’ for the immigration officers ‘to say that they were going to get run over.’
‘That’s a lie,’ he wrote, per the outlet. ‘No officer was behind nor in front — they were on the sides.’
People were seen marching during a vigil for Salgado Araujo in Houston after he was shot and killed by an ICE officer
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Salgado Araujo’s wife prepared the electrolyte mixes for his crew every morning and that it was ‘something they’ve been doing for years’
Last Thursday, Aaron Reitz, the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said that the FBI, DHS and other state and local law enforcement agencies were looking into Salgado Araujo’s death.
Reitz said that federal officers had been ‘investigating two Guatemalan men known to be driving a white van,’ adding that the two suspects had previously evaded arrest and were potentially subject to deportation.
As that was happening, authorities received a report of a ‘similar van in the area,’ which they later pursued and surrounded.
According to Reitz, preliminary information indicated that the driver shifted the van into reverse and then forward while an officer ‘was partially inside the van or immediately next to it.’
The ensuing confrontation resulted in Salgado Araujo being shot. He was taken to Ben Taub Hospital, where he died.
Salgado Araujo had been living without legal status in the US for 35 years. His family said he did not have a criminal record.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the DHS, which oversees ICE, and FBI Houston for comment.
