The federal agents involved in a deadly ICE shooting in Houston were not equipped with body cameras at the time of the incident, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday.
An ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican homebuilder, during an attempted vehicle stop early Tuesday morning in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Houston. Salgado Araujo had been driving a work van when agents tried to pull him over.
In a separate development, the Harris County District Attorney’s office announced it is opening an investigation into the shooting. A spokesperson for the office, Rafael Lemaitre, said prosecutors are consulting with counterparts in Minneapolis, where federal agents previously fatally shot two U.S. citizens, to learn how to handle investigations involving federal immigration officers.
“Although access to key evidence remains under federal control, we are pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach,” Lemaitre said in a written statement.
DHS, which oversees ICE, said the agents had not yet been issued body cameras, attributing the delay to Democratic opposition during a record-length government shutdown tied to President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement push. The department said those agents are expected to receive body cameras within the next 60 days.
According to DHS, agents had been watching a property where they had previously spotted two white vans as part of a targeted operation to detain someone in the country without legal status. “On July 7, officers were almost at the target’s address when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. Officers then initiated the vehicle stop,” the department said.
DHS has maintained that Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle and that an agent fired in self-defense. However, Salgado Araujo’s family has disputed that account and is demanding the agency release all available evidence. The family says he had no criminal record and was on the verge of receiving a work permit after living in the United States for more than 35 years without legal status.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained by ICE during the traffic stop, according to Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who has been in contact with the families involved.
Proaño told The Associated Press that LULAC has not been able to obtain clear video footage showing what happened during the shooting and has offered a $5,000 reward for witness information. He said security camera footage the organization has reviewed was partially blocked by the positions of Salgado Araujo’s van and ICE vehicles. “It’s going to make it even more difficult to find the truth in all this,” he said.
The family of Salgado Araujo, along with Democratic lawmakers, is calling for an independent investigation into the shooting. In the wake of the fatal Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats had refused to approve funding for ICE and the Border Patrol without accountability reforms. Republicans in Congress ultimately passed legislation providing three years of funding solely for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
