The Harris County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that a substance found in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo‘s van tested negative for narcotics and other illicit drugs.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 51, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer while on his way to work after picking up his construction crew on July 7.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office on Friday said its investigation into this is pending, which is why it’s not commenting further on the drug test results.
“We have notified Salgado Araujo’s family because we felt they had the right to know,” the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in another X post.
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FBI officials obtained a federal search warrant for Salgado Araujo’s vehicle after the shooting, saying that there were “several plastic bags with what appeared to be a white crystal-like substance packaged in small plastic bags” in plain view. The FBI claimed the packaging and appearance of the substance was consistent with methamphetamine.
The family, though, said the substance was an electrolyte powder that keeps people hydrated while working outside.
An application for the search warrant was available publicly — which isn’t typical during an investigation like this.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, at a congressional hearing in Houston held by the Hispanic Caucus, testified that this is the first time in his career that a search warrant in a criminal case on the federal side was unsealed before a grand jury presentation of the facts.
“The stated goals of the search warrant had nothing to do with this shooting investigation at all,” Teare said. “The van was not being alleged to have been stopped based on possession of narcotics. There was no indication that anyone in law enforcement was aware that narcotics potentially were in the car.”
One of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s sons, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Jr., who spoke at the hearing, said that the idea that there may have been drugs in the vehicle “is absurd.”
“[My father] did not use drugs,” he said. “He abhorred them.”
David Donatti, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in a statement that “by taking the unusual steps of securing and then unsealing their search warrant, the government has demonstrated that it is more interested in creating a false narrative than in seeking the truth. “
“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo should still be alive today, and nothing about the government’s so-called ‘search’ could have changed that fact,” Donatti said.
The FBI declined to comment.
The Department of Homeland Security previously said Lorenzo Salgado Araujo tried to evade arrest and “weaponized his vehicle” before the shooting. A lawyer for the men who were with Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when he was shot said they told him Lorenzo Salgado Araujo did not veer in the officer’s direction. The officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle, they said, according to a report from the Washington Post.
DHS said Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not a target of the immigration operation being carried out.
Another son, Ronaldo Salgado, said his father would have stopped his vehicle “immediately” had ICE agents clearly identified themselves, “rather than aggressively approach him in two unmarked vehicles without emergency lights on.”
“That must have been terrifying, not knowing who was after him,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “We had talked about what would happen if he were to be stopped by ICE and how he would conduct himself, and he believed there would always be a way for him to come back home to us.”
Harris County District Attorney says DHS not responding to office
Teare, at Friday’s hearing, said his office has reached out to DHS on “a number of occasions” after the shooting, and they haven’t gotten a response.
“It’s unique in its abnormality,” he said. “In every agency in the 20 years that I’ve been in law enforcement, I’ve never seen behavior like this.”
DHS, ICE and the Office of the Inspector General have not identified the shooter to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, nor have they said whether they are still on the streets, Teare said.
“They haven’t told us anything,” Teare said. “We have been able to identify some pieces of evidence without the official notifications, but they haven’t told us anything about that.”
An ICE spokesperson said in an email to Straight Arrow that DHS and the OIG are investigating the shooting.
“This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information is available,” the spokesperson said.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, said letters sent by her and other lawmakers to DHS and ICE also went unanswered, and that no members of either agency agreed to participate in the hearing.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s sons urged lawmakers at the hearing to keep investigating what happened to their father, who Ronaldo Salgado called “a job creator, a man who believed good things come to those who work hard and who worked tirelessly to give his sons more than he had.”
“Our father deserves justice,” Ronaldo Salgado said. “Today, we are asking that you use your authority as members of Congress to help ensure that he gets it.”
Lorenzo Salgado Jr. asked lawmakers to use all the tools at their disposal to request public records, demand follow-up, hold other hearings and enact laws.
“Not only to help us learn the truth about what happened to our father, but to make sure this never happens again,” he said.
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