Feds claim that drugs may have been inside the van in the fatal Houston ICE shooting. – In a case of mistaken identity, 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot during a traffic check. ICE’s version of the shooting is contested by witnesses. Salgado Araujo’s van may have contained cocaine, according to the FBI.
According to a secret search warrant that Sortea was able to obtain, the FBI is looking into whether drugs were inside a cargo van after immigration authorities shot and killed a 52-year-old Mexican national during a traffic stop in Houston.
FBI Special Agent David McNeilly applied for a warrant on July 14 to search the white Ford van after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer early on July 7. According to his family and coworkers, he was en route to work.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Salgado Araujo was singled out for a traffic stop because they thought he was someone else, not because of anything in his car.In the warrant application, McNeilly stated, “The United States is currently gathering all facts related to this incident, including what may have caused the people in charge of the vehicle to flee.” Although the application was meant to be sealed, Sortea was nevertheless able to access it.
The search warrant was issued by Texas Federal Magistrate Judge Richard Bennett on the same day McNeilly submitted the application, which was listed in the federal case docket on July 15. According to court documents, Bennett did not specify that the application needed to be unsealed.
Inquiries concerning the search warrant were directed by a representative for the FBI’s Houston field office to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, which informed Sortea that it does not “have anything additional to provide at this time.”
Sortea’s request for comment was not immediately answered by the Department of Homeland Security. However, ICE did not respond to Sortea’s specific inquiries on the search warrant or the events surrounding the incident, instead directing her to a statement released last week. Feds claim that drugs may have been inside the van in the fatal Houston ICE shooting.
According to ICE, the DHS’s Office of Inspector General is still looking into the shooting.
Sortea contacted the lawyers for the three guys who were in the van at the time of the incident. All of the men are in custody.
According to federal officials, Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over” an officer during the traffic check that led to the shooting. Salgado Araujo never threatened anyone, according to the others in the van with him, and an ICE officer opened fire on him from the side of the car.
Despite government officials’ earlier this year pledges that the agency would be completely outfitted with body cameras and $20 million in financing for the equipment, ICE officers were not donning them.
In the warrant application, McNeilly stated that upon arriving at the scene following the shooting, he observed multiple little plastic bags containing a “white crystal-like substance” “in plain view”—three in the center of the dash and one on the passenger floorboard. McNeilly stated in the application that he was a former Houston police officer and that he thought the bags’ contents were consistent with methamphetamine.
Whether the substance has been tested is unknown.
When the FBI’s Evidence Response Team arrived on the scene, they took pictures of the inside of the van, which were included in court documents. However, according to McNeilly’s application, the car had not yet been searched or entered by law enforcement.
McNeilly said there was “probable cause” that federal offenses had been committed based on the evidence of the little baggies in his request to the court to search the vehicle. Feds claim that drugs may have been inside the van in the fatal Houston ICE shooting.
Houston authorities have requested the sharing of evidence pertaining to the shooting of Salgado Araujo. The FBI possesses evidence that local police would typically use to look into similar shootings, but the agency isn’t releasing it, according to Houston Mayor John Whitmore, who has called for an independent probe.
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