Feds sideline Texas officials in probe into ICE shooting, district attorney says

The district attorney in Harris County, Texas, said Wednesday that federal authorities have sidelined local officials from participating in an investigation into the fatal shooting of a Mexican man in Houston by an immigration officer.

District Attorney Sean Teare said in a social media post that his office typically conducts a “parallel investigation” into any death caused by law enforcement. But, he added, “Unfortunately at this time, federal authorities continue exclusively handling all aspects in this case.”

Teare, whose office oversees local criminal prosecutions, called on witnesses to come forward with their own accounts, including videos or photos, of the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a traffic stop arrest on Tuesday.

“Mr. Salgado Araujo’s family and our community deserve the truth,” Teare wrote.

Federal authorities said that Salgado Araujo was in the country illegally and that he tried to hit officers with his vehicle while attempting to flee, prompting one to fire his weapon in self-defense. Salgado Araujo’s family and community activists have described him as a dedicated father of three sons, all American citizens, who was picking up co-workers for a construction job on the morning he was shot.

The Department of Homeland Security’s description of the shooting matches in key ways what the government said after the killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis in January. In that case, video of the shooting raised questions about the position of the officer who fired and about whether Good was driving toward officers in a way that posed a threat. After both her death and the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti two weeks later, state authorities said that federal investigators were blocking their attempts to investigate the deaths.

DHS said the Office of the Inspector General would lead the federal investigation into the shooting of Salgado Araujo, while the FBI said its role would center on whether Salgado Araujo had assaulted the officers who were trying to arrest him. Historically, the FBI and the Justice Department have also examined shootings involving federal law enforcement officers to see whether the victim’s civil rights may have been violated.

Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for Teare, said the district attorney has assigned investigators from the office’s Civil Rights Division to go to the scene of the shooting and collect whatever evidence they can. Teare met with Salgado Araujo’s family Wednesday, Lemaitre said.

“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.

An ICE spokesperson did not respond directly to questions about Teare’s assertion that federal authorities are not including his office in their investigation.

Salgado Araujo’s family, immigration advocates and local officials held a news conference Wednesday to demand an independent probe into his death. They cited the fatal shootings of Good and Pretti as examples of why the federal government cannot be trusted to handle the investigation. But it was not clear what recourse the family and advocates have to pursue an independent review.

In a statement, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office said that it “routinely reviews allegations involving DHS employees or contractors” but cited a policy of not discussing the specifics of an investigation “to preserve our independence and protect the integrity of our work.”

Cuffari’s office is currently investigating more than 600 cases of misconduct by DHS employees, including allegations of corruption, embezzlement and excessive force, according to a person familiar with the matter. Though the office publicly releases reports of policy audits, it does not reveal the findings of its criminal investigations, which could result in referrals to the Justice Department for potential indictments. The investigation into Salgado Araujo’s shooting is expected to take months.

Some state and local entities said they would not get involved. Houston Mayor John Whitmire called for a “transparent, independent investigation,” but he expressed doubt that the city has jurisdiction over a shooting involving federal officers and told the City Council that the police department does not have the authority to open its own review.

“Federal law states local law enforcement has no independent jurisdiction to investigate federal agencies or federal law enforcement personnel who are acting in the course and scope of their official duties,” the Houston police department said in a statement.

Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) said at the news conference with advocates that “somebody being killed by law enforcement is a big, goddamned deal” and called for a “full and transparent investigation into what happened here.” He warned that ICE could expect rigorous congressional oversight if Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections this fall.

“We’ve seen what happened to Alex Pretti. We’ve seen what happened to Renée Good. We’ve seen the habits of ICE. They’ve lost the trust of the American people,” Menefee said.

In Minneapolis, state and local officials said they would pursue their own probes into the killings of Good and Pretti after the Trump administration sidelined local law enforcement and federal prosecutors in Minnesota from partnering in any federal investigation, and said DHS — not the Justice Department — would lead the probe.

Before Salgado Araujo’s killing, federal officers were involved in at least 16 other shootings over the past year while conducting immigration enforcement operations. Those incidents resulted in three deaths and injured at least 10 people.

In each instance, the Department of Homeland Security publicly declared the officers’ actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed and, in some cases, accused those who were shot of threatening federal officers. Federal prosecutors later dropped charges against some of the shooting victims after video footage and other evidence contradicted the government’s accounts.

Two federal immigration officers are facing state criminal charges in the aftermath of the Minneapolis crackdown. Christian Castro, an ICE officer, has been charged with four state counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the nonfatal shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis in January. He has not yet entered a plea. Another agent, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., was charged with two counts of second-degree assault after he allegedly pointed a gun at a vehicle on Feb. 5 while driving on a local highway.

Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen shot five times by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Chicago last year, was charged with assaulting a federal officer. But authorities dropped the charges after officer-worn body-camera footage showed that Border Patrol Agent Charles Exum had rammed Martinez’s vehicle and pointed his gun at her.

“My advice based on what I’ve seen in the Marimar Martinez case is: Do not trust DOJ to do an investigation, much less a fair investigation,” attorney Christopher Parente said in an interview Wednesday, when asked about Salgado Araujo’s shooting.

In Houston, Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin, whose office oversees civil cases, attended the news conference with advocates and pledged to assist in their efforts to gather more information about the shooting.

In an interview, however, Kamin said her office lacks the jurisdiction to hold federal officers accountable on potential criminal infractions.

“We will continue to stand up and call out what we are seeing, which is the complete disregard and disrespect for the rule of law,” Kamin said of the Trump administration’s handling of immigration enforcement.

In Mexico, Salgado Araujo’s killing has stirred widespread outrage. President Claudia Sheinbaum vowed Wednesday to respond with “legal measures” that would “go beyond” complaining to international bodies or releasing a diplomatic statement. Her office declined to offer specifics, however.

“He was killed during a detention when his only fault was not having papers, even though he was hired by a U.S. company,” Sheinbaum said.

Juliette Kayyem, a former DHS official, said her former agency has squandered its credibility by repeatedly claiming that federal officers involved in shootings had fired out of self-defense, only to have those assertions undercut by additional evidence.

“DHS under this administration gets no benefit of the doubt,” said Kayyem, now a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She said investigators must ask: “Who is this ICE agent? How long has he been an ICE agent? How much training did he get? Is it his first shooting or his fifth? These are questions that are so basic to an investigation.”

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• Terrence McCoy in Mexico City contributed.