(CNN) — Federal officials’ version of what led to the fatal shooting of a man in Houston during an immigration operation this week doesn’t match that of three men detained during the incident, an attorney who spoke with them says.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said an agent opened fire Tuesday after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national, rammed a law enforcement vehicle and refused to follow verbal commands during a traffic stop that was part of a “targeted operation.”
But the three men who were detained told attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra the version of events presented by ICE is false: “At no point did they use the van to ram into the ICE agents and at no point were these ICE agents’ lives ever in any danger,” the lawyer said in a video posted to his Instagram.
Surveillance video obtained by CNN shows a black SUV trailing Salgado Araujo’s white van as he drove down Canal Street early Tuesday morning. The van is then seen briefly stopping in front of a home before turning and slowly driving onto the sidewalk as two officers chase it on foot.
Another surveillance video shared with CNN shows another black SUV driving through the shopping center on Canal Street and joining the pursuit.
It’s unclear what occurred between Salgado Araujo and ICE officers when the white van briefly stopped in front of a home, but cellphone video taken around the same time shows it had come to a full stop in front of a former barber shop on the same street.
Complete details of the deadly encounter remain unclear as questions about how it escalated, calls for an independent investigation and community outcry mount. The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office are now investigating.
The case marks the first fatal shooting involving federal immigration agents since US citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti were killed in ICE operations in Minneapolis. It again raises questions about who is targeted by a nationwide immigration enforcement push the Trump administration says aims to remove dangerous criminals from the US.
Salgado Araujo was shot after agents in two black SUVs without apparent law enforcement markings pursued his white work van, surveillance videos obtained by CNN and the League of United Latin American Citizens show.
Police lights flashed on in one unmarked ICE vehicle and the work van slowed before ICE vehicles rammed into it, Balderas-Ibarra told The Washington Post, citing the detained men. An ICE agent then exited his vehicle and opened fire almost immediately, striking Salgado Araujo, the lawyer said. CNN has reached out to him and ICE for comment.
Salgado Araujo was not the target of the operation, a source familiar with preliminary details about the incident told CNN and local officials said during a news conference Friday, citing acting ICE director David Venturella.
Before Tuesday’s encounter, Texas authorities had notified ICE about two people — neither of them Salgado Araujo — believed to be in the United States without legal status and traveling in a white van, according to the source.
In a news conference Friday, Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas said that account appeared different from what she was previously told by Venturella on Thursday. CNN has reached out to DHS for clarity about the differing accounts.
On Tuesday, “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,” a Homeland Security official told CNN.
The van was registered to Salgado Araujo, whom agents determined to be in the country illegally, the source said. When ICE agents tried to stop Salgado Araujo, he rammed their vehicle, resulting in an officer firing his weapon in self-defense, the agency said.
Salgado Araujo’s family disputes the federal government’s account and says the hardworking father of three would have stopped if he had known the car following him belonged to ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security has not released footage of the shooting, and none of the agents involved had been issued body-worn cameras, a spokesperson said. Body cameras have been deployed to more than half of ICE field offices, with the rest expected to get them within 60 days, an agency spokesperson said.
CNN has asked DHS about any available dashcam footage.
The absence of official footage in the Houston shooting has renewed questions about transparency and accountability in immigration enforcement operations months after a federal judge in Chicago ordered immigration agents involved in enforcement there to wear and activate their body cameras.
Now, in Houston and beyond, video circulating online of a black SUV following the white van and of a man on the ground as a federal agent kneels over him are fueling anger.
Investigations are underway
The DHS Office of the Inspector General is now leading an investigation into the shooting, according to ICE. The FBI’s Houston field office is also investigating the alleged assault on a federal law enforcement officer.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is pursuing its own investigation and independently collecting information on the shooting, though “access to key evidence remains under federal control,” spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre said.
Cases in which a community member dies during an encounter with law enforcement are “the most critical cases to handle properly,” District Attorney Sean Teare told Houston Public Media on Thursday.
“We have got to be able to explain to the community in these cases more than any other that we are aboveboard, that we are transparent, that we are going to get to the bottom of it, whether we like the outcome or not.”
Protecting the investigation’s integrity is his top priority, Teare added: “We’re going to look at every avenue, and if a state crime was committed, be it a murder, be it a manslaughter, be it tampering with evidence, we are going to investigate it. And if someone committed that crime, you don’t get to hide behind a badge.”
Balderas-Ibarra, who represents two of the passengers who were in the van with Salgado Araujo during the incident, called for his clients’ immediate release from ICE’s Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas, during Friday’s news conference. Neither of their names has been released publicly by officials.
Garcia and Balderas-Ibarra said loved ones of the two detainees have told them they are being pressured to sign voluntary deportation forms — an incentive program used to get undocumented immigrants to leave the country on their own.
ICE denied the allegation Friday, telling CNN “It is categorically false we would pressure someone to self-deport.”
Houston Mayor John Whitmire said Friday the city does not have “jurisdiction to investigate” the shooting. But the Houston Police Department had offered its resources to help with the investigation, Chief Noe Diaz told DHS’ Office of Inspector General and the FBI in letters shared with CNN.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government moved Friday to elevate its concerns beyond diplomatic protest as it sought criminal investigations in the US and demanded accountability for 17 Mexican citizens who died in ICE’s custody or enforcement operations, she said.
“We are preparing legal measures,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday. “Obviously, more significant ones would go to different international bodies.”
Texas Democratic lawmakers, activists and Salgado Araujo’s family are demanding a more in-depth investigation into his killing, with the civil rights group LULAC offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
At Friday’s news conference, Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green said he signed onto a Homeland Security Committee letter to Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding evidence related to the shooting, including body camera footage with an explanation if no such video exists, details on how officers identified themselves, records related to the officers involved and any evidence supporting the government’s account of events.
The family expects to receive Salgado Araujo’s body on Friday as relatives begin making funeral arrangements and pursue an independent autopsy, all while grappling with their sudden loss, LULAC National President Roman Palomares said.
“He was young. He was healthy. He was strong. He had a whole lifetime ahead of him, and his family misses him,” he said, predicting Friday will be tough for the family.
Father had sought legal status
Like most days, Salgado Araujo left his home Tuesday to head to Houston’s predominately Hispanic East End to pick up the rest of his construction crew — his brother and two others — before driving north to work on some homes, the family said.
Shortly before 7 a.m., ICE agents tried to stop him, the agency said.
CNN has asked DHS whether immigration enforcement agents identified themselves to Salgado Araujo.
After the shooting, a federal agent on a phone kneels over a wounded man lying face down and moaning in pain beside a white SUV parked near a barbershop, video shows. The right side of the wounded man’s stomach was bleeding, said Juliet Martinez, a Houston resident who recorded the video and shared it with CNN.
“He was screaming for help and screaming that he was in pain,” Martinez recalled. “He yelled, ‘Help me! They shot me!’”
Emergency services were contacted immediately after Salgado Araujo was shot, ICE said in a statement.
His cause of death was a gunshot wound to the torso and the manner of death was ruled a homicide, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences told CNN on Thursday.
Salgado Araujo had prepared for the possibility of an encounter with federal immigration authorities, his son said. The father had consulted attorneys and planned to decline signing any documents before calling his wife or son to help secure his release, if ever detained.
He was also “close to obtaining his legal status,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “We dotted every ‘i,’ crossed every ‘t,’ filled every document, attended every appointment.”
Salgado Araujo had spent three decades living and working in the US while providing for his family and progressing toward a work permit, his son said, describing him as a private, hardworking family man.
Salgado Araujo did not appear to have a criminal record, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Garcia said Friday the ICE agents involved in the incident “were removed from Houston the very next day.”
CNN has asked DHS how many agents were involved in the incident, their rank within the department and if they had been reassigned or were placed on administrative leave.
The life behind the headlines
Ronaldo Salgado wants the world to remember his father not for how he died but for the life he built as a husband, father and business owner who believed in the American dream.
“He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE,’” the son said at a news conference Wednesday.
Salgado Araujo met his wife as a teenager in Mexico, his son said. Together, they raised three sons, emphasizing the idea of “education taking us so far in life,” Ronaldo Salgado said. The eldest son became a teacher, while his brothers went into engineering.
His father also built a successful construction business, working on hundreds of homes across the Houston area over three decades, his son said. Salgado Araujo was “known for his work ethic, his fairness, and his willingness to help anyone who needed it,” a GoFundMe organized for the family said.
A community vigil for Salgado Araujo is planned for Saturday at the Service Employees International Union Texas office in Houston at 10 a.m. CT.
“I am deeply heartbroken to see that the man who taught me the value of hard work, family values and education will no longer spend an evening on that porch,” Ronaldo Salgado said.
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