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A Mexican man who lived in the United States and was shot and killed by an agent from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was not the target of the federal authorities' operation in Houston, federal representative Sylvia Garcia stated on Thursday.
The Democrat, whose district includes the neighborhood where the incident occurred, stated that acting ICE director David Venturella confirmed to her that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo "was not a target."
Salgado Araujo was a construction worker who had lived in the United States for over 35 years, had no criminal record, and was close to finishing the long process to obtain legal status when he was shot Tuesday morning, according to his family.
"We have to do something. There are already too many deaths like this," Garcia said in an interview with MS Now. "And if we have to bring in outside, independent people to come and review it, we have to do it."
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had previously said that federal agents were conducting an operation aimed at arresting a person who was in the country without legal status when they attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Salgado Araujo. The agency noted that the latter rammed an ICE vehicle and that a federal agent fired a weapon in self-defense.
When asked if ICE agents were targeting Salgado Araujo, the Department of Homeland Security responded Thursday that agents were monitoring a property where two white vans had been previously observed.
"On July 7, agents were very close to the target's home when they observed a white van with an individual who resembled the target. That was when the agents initiated the stop of the vehicle," the department noted.
The federal agents who participated in the operation were not wearing body cameras, the DHS reported, and since then, few photos or videos related to the shooting have come to light, unlike similar incidents involving federal immigration agents.
The DHS indicated in a statement that the agents involved had not yet received body cameras, something it attributed to Democrats and a government shutdown driven by President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Democratic federal representative Christian Menefee stated that if the agents were not wearing the devices, it was because Trump and Republican lawmakers did not want them to.
"Houston no longer accepts excuses from an agency that has more money than it can spend and is still incapable of managing basic responsibilities," he said in a statement.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office indicated that it will conduct an investigation into the shooting. The office is currently consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis, where federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, to learn how they have handled investigations involving federal immigration agents, explained spokesperson Rafael Lemaitre.
"Although access to key evidence remains under federal control, we are pursuing the investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our scope," Lemaitre stated in a statement sent via email.
Three men, including Salgado Araujo's brother, were detained by ICE during the traffic stop in which the death occurred, according to Juan Proaño, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), who has been in communication with their families.
LULAC has not yet obtained video footage that clearly shows what happened in the moments of the shooting and has offered a $5,000 reward for witness information, Proaño told The Associated Press. The positioning of Salgado Araujo's van and the ICE vehicles obstructed the security camera footage that LULAC has reviewed, he added.
"That is going to make it even harder to find the truth in all of this," he expressed.
The Department of Homeland Security indicated that ICE agents involved in the incident were expected to receive body cameras within the next 60 days.
Following the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Democrats refused to fund ICE and the Border Patrol if changes were not made aimed at increasing accountability and transparency in those operations. Congressional Republicans eventually passed legislation that only funded ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for three years.
[Publicidad]