Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced on Friday that his office is investigating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting death of 52-year-old Houston man Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, whether or not the federal government offers any help.
“Since Tuesday, when this incident occurred, we have been conducting our own investigation,” said Teare. He added that “we were not invited into this scene,” but that “my investigators and my civil rights division have been out there … looking for surveillance footage, talking to witnesses, doing everything that we can and we do in every case to ensure that a full, fair investigation is conducted so that we can be transparent with our community.”
Teare added that he is fervently seeking information from the public.
“Anyone that was there that day, anyone that has a snippet of footage from a camera, regardless of whether or not you think that it’s even relevant — send it to us,” he said. “Things that you may not think are important could be the pivotal piece of information for us to finally figure out what actually happened.”
ICE agents initially claimed that Araujo, a Mexican national who has lived peacefully in the United States for 35 years, struck a law enforcement vehicle with his car and attempted to run down an agent. However, footage of the scene appears not to show any of this happening, and new reporting indicates that ICE was seeking a different person when the encounter happened.
The Justice Department under Trump has systematically closed investigations of ICE-related deaths, including the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis that sparked a national uproar.
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