The illegal migrant gunned down by an ICE agent in Texas this week was not the intended target, federal officials admitted Thursday.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, of Mexico, looked like another suspect the agency was tracking — and was killed when he tried to ram his car into ICE officers in an attempt to flee a traffic stop in Houston, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“After receiving a credible tip from our law enforcement partners, our officers conducted surveillance on a target’s address. Weeks prior to the incident, they noted two white vans at the property,” DHS told CBS in a statement.
“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.”
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) confirmed that the acting ICE director, David Venturella, told her his officers thought someone in the van — not Salgado Araujo — had a final order of removal but wouldn’t provide her with the name.
On Tuesday, the DHS claimed Salgado Araujo had ignored their instructions to pull over and attempted to ram an ICE officer with his vehicle — leading the officer to fire on him in self-defense.
The officers were not wearing body cameras when Salgado Araujo was shot.
Video captured by a bystander showed a black vehicle angled toward a white van with its doors wide open as a bleeding and handcuffed man shook and groaned loudly on the ground.
At least three other men were seen handcuffed in the footage, one of whom Salgado Araujo’s family identified as his brother.
Salgado Araujo lived in the US for 35 years and was close to obtaining his legal status, his loved ones claimed, adding that the father of three had his own business as a homebuilder and had no criminal record.
Ronaldo Salgado, the oldest son, described Salgado Araujo as a quiet man who left for work at sunrise and loved to pet his dog and sit on his porch while listening to music.
“That’s how I want the world to know my father,’ Salgado, a teacher, said.
“Not as someone who got shot and killed, but as a family man, a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work.”
DHS’s Inspector General’s Office was investigating the shooting, the department said Tuesday.
On Thursday, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said his office was also “pursuing investigative avenues available to us and will conduct a review of any information we collect within our reach.”
With Post Wires
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