By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
After we first posted this article, new information has come to light. On Sunday, July 12, the Washington Post published video footage that shows the van of Salgado Araujo being pursued by two unmarked black vehicles. As the van proceeds along Canal Street, at least three men run after it on foot. After the van has come to a stop, the men catch up to it and immediately open the front door on the passenger’s side and haul a passenger to the ground. At no time does the footage show men or a vehicle in front of the van—which appears to contradict the government’s claim that Salgado had tried to “ram” the ICE vehicle and an ICE agent. Unfortunately, footage of the shooting of Salgado, and what happened in the seconds before he was killed, is still missing. — M.S.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a hard-working man; he was resourceful and highly determined to succeed. Since he and his wife came to this country from Mexico, almost 35 years ago, he had built a house-construction business in suburban Houston and eventually built a house for his own family. At the same time, he had always been punctual in attending meetings with immigration authorities and had submitted all of the requisite paperwork without fail. Salgado and his wife felt that they were very close to achieving full permanent residence in the United States.
The morning of Tuesday, July 7, started much like it did on every other workday. Salgado rose before sunrise, put on his work clothes, and had a big breakfast that his wife had prepared. A surveillance video released to the national media by his son Renaldo shows his father in the driveway of their house, accompanied by the family’s dog. He places a cooler containing his coffee and lunch onto the front seat of his white van. He climbs into the driver’s seat, ready to pick up three coworkers in Houston’s Latino East End, and to carry them to their job site.
It is 5:54 a.m. on July 7 when Salgado backs the van into the street. Tragically, he will never return home. Within an hour after leaving his driveway, he is shot and killed by ICE agents. The circumstances remain unclear.
Surveillance cameras at a gas station and a health spa give fleeting glimpses of Salgado’s white van on the streets; it is closely followed by a black SUV. Another video, taken minutes later by a passerby with her phone camera, shows the van and the SUV stopped close together in the middle of Canal Street. Salgado is covered in blood, lying face down in the street next to the van, as two men in plain clothes, baseball caps, and bulky vests crouch over him. On the other side of the van, at least one other man is seen lying in the street and in handcuffs.
According to Renaldo Salgado, his father had been calling for help as he lay in the street. “¡Me están matando!” (“They’re killing me!”), he cried out. Salgado was taken to Ben Taub hospital, admitted as a “John Doe,” and soon declared dead. The authorities failed to rapidly notify Salgado’s family of his death; his wife and sons first heard that there had been a shooting incident in a video.
What events led to the killing of the 52-year-old immigrant small business owner? The Bureau of Homeland Security and ICE have not yet given a cogent story to explain why their agents opened fire, except to maintain that Salgado, “an illegal alien from Mexico,” had tried to “ram” the ICE vehicle and then tried to run over one of their agents. So far, absolutely no evidence has been provided; the ICE agents were not wearing body cameras, and their vehicles did not have dashboard cameras.
From their detention cells, the three passengers in the van, the immigrant workers whom Salgado had been driving to a job site, have disputed the murky “facts” that ICE clings to. The three men—Trinidad Rojas, Daniel Tirado Pantoja, and Victor Salgado (Lorenzo’s brother)—have all affirmed that no ICE agents or vehicles were positioned in front of Salgado’s van. It appears to have been impossible for him to try to “ram” them.
Their lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, gave the following account to the Washington Post, which appeared in its July 10 edition and was reprinted by the Houston Chronicle: “According to the report, the men said the chase started after they had been picked up to go to a construction job and had stopped to buy ice and water. The men said that an unmarked vehicle began to follow them at a traffic light. After a light change, the vehicle cut in front them and braked. The action caused Salgado to make a U-turn, according to the report. After that, officers turned on police lights on the vehicles, according to the report.
“[Trinidad] Rojas wrote that Salgado thought he had managed to get away from their pursuers: ‘Lorenzo thought we had lost them but suddenly they surrounded us,’ Rojas wrote on his note, according to the Post.
“As the van turned onto Canal Street, the vehicles struck the work van from the sides and then boxed the van in, according to the report. The men said an officer got out, ran toward the van from the passenger side, yelled ‘Stop’ and began firing almost immediately, according to the report.”
“When he shot my brother, the gun was in front of my face,” Balderas-Ibarra read from the notes of his interview with Victor Salgado, who had been sitting in the front passenger’s seat. The men said that even though Lorenzo Salgado had stopped the van, the ICE agents continued to shoot into the vehicle from the sides. Rojas said that the officers then pulled the wounded Salgado out of the driver’s seat and threw him violently to the ground.
The Post article stated that all three witnesses are now facing deportation proceedings.
It is not clear whether Salgado realized that the plain-clothes men inside the SUV were ICE agents. According to his son, it would have been unlike the even-tempered Salgado to try to “ram” the agents, and he might have thought that the men were robbers who were trying to steal his tools.
Of course, when ICE murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis, they similarly tried to trick people with the claim that “she tried to run over an ICE agent”—an attempt to make the victim into the perpetrator. Videos showed that their charges against Good were a lie. Nevertheless, the FBI has announced that while the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security is investigating the shooting of Salgado, the FBI’s Houston office will be leading an inquiry into the “potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer.”
Salgado’s family is calling for an independent probe into his killing. The demand has been backed by civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups. So far, federal authorities have refused to consider the demand. Meanwhile, Houston’s Mayor John Whitmire has declined to seek a city-led investigation.
On July 8, over a thousand protesters marched in Houston to protest the killing of Lorenzo Salgado and to demand justice. The march was organized by the civil rights group FIEL Houston and by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. It began at the Canal Street site of Salgado’s killing, where a memorial of flowers and candles had been set up.
“This is the exact spot that Lorenzo took his final breath,” Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, told the protesters. “And in the spirit of solidarity, I don’t know about you, but I say, if they come for one of us, they come for all of us.” Signs held by the demonstrators demanded “ICE out of Houston” and “Abolish ICE!”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on July 8 that her government intends to file criminal complaints in regard to citizens of Mexico who have died while in U.S. custody or in an immigration roundup.
Killings such as the one that targeted Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are bound to be repeated in the frenzied anti-immigrant campaign created by the Trump administration and ICE. “ICE is making record arrests right now,” Trump’s immigration czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News. “We turned the heat up.” According to The New York Times, daily arrests of immigrants doubled over a five-day period last week to a rate of about 2000 a day. Some were arrested during traffic stops, like the one in which Salgado lost his life, while many other people were taken into custody during routine check-ins at government offices.
Unfortunately, these detentions are not getting the headlines that they received many months ago after highly visible battalions of immigration agents were sent into Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and other cities, and Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down. A massive nationwide protest movement in the streets had some success in subduing ICE violence, at least for a short time. We now must return to the streets—with protests that are far larger and better organized than before.
Say his name! “¡Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, presente!” Abolish ICE!
Photo: Lorenzo Salgado’s sons, Renaldo and Lorenzo Jr., hold up a photo of their father during a July 8 press conference in Houston.