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.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General is leading the investigation, and Teare said it remains to be seen whether the agency would share anything with his office.
“My office is running an investigation,” he said in a radio interview with Houston Public Media. “But we do not have the same level of access that we do in almost any other officer-involved shooting.”
DHS 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.
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.
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