Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Thursday his office is committed to investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal immigration agent but cautioned that local prosecutors face challenges accessing evidence.
His comment came amid mounting calls for independent investigations of the Tuesday shooting in Houston, particularly from 52-year-old Salgado Araujo’s family and community advocates who said they didn’t trust the federal government to fairly scrutinize the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the case.
Recommended Videos
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General is leading the federal investigation, and Teare said it remains to be seen whether the agency would share anything with his office. Meanwhile, the FBI’s Houston office is spearheading an inquiry into whether there was an assault on a federal law enforcement officer, which Teare called “a moot point in this case.”
“My office is running an investigation,” he said in a radio interview with Houston Public Media, adding that his investigators have visited the scene and collected surveillance evidence. “But we do not have the same level of access that we do in almost any other officer-involved shooting.”
Homeland Security, which has declined to identify the officer who shot Salgado Araujo, citing violence and threats against ICE agents, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Texas Tribune also called the main number listed for the department’s inspector general office, but it is not in service.
Teare also said he has been in contact with the Hennepin County attorney’s office, which launched inquiries into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents earlier this year. The Minnesota officials sued the federal government to gain access to evidence.
“No one is more familiar with these kinds of situations than them,” he said.
When asked if he was considering any legal challenges to get better access to case information, Teare said his office was not yet at that point in the investigation.
A day earlier, Harris County’s top prosecutor had taken to social media to publicly call for witnesses and anyone with photos or videos of the fatal shooting to step forward. At the time, he said only that his office would usually investigate any fatal interaction with law enforcement in the county, adding that federal officials had continued “exclusively handling all aspects in this case.”
State and federal Democratic lawmakers have also publicly demanded independent investigations of the shooting.
Though the Texas Department of Public Safety has already said it will not investigate the Houston shooting, citing the FBI probe. The department previously investigated an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Ruben Ray Martinez, who was also accused of trying to run over a federal agent. But footage that DPS released this year didn’t definitively show the 23-year-old man doing so.
Ultimately, Teare said, it’s critically important to properly investigate killings by law enforcement to maintain community trust.
“We have got to be able to explain to the community, in these cases more than any other, that we are above board, that we are transparent, that we are going to get to the bottom of it, whether we like the outcome or not,” he said.
Disclosure: Houston Public Media has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.