Man who was killed by ICE in Texas never ‘weaponized’ his vehicle, witnesses say

A memorial to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, on Friday. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A memorial to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas, on Friday. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images Man who was killed by ICE in Texas never ‘weaponized’ his vehicle, witnesses say Lawyer says men who were riding in van are being pressured to self-deport as footage of incident is reportedly with investigators Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email The three men who were in the van when federal immigration officials shot and killed a man in Houston, Texas , this week are strongly disputing the Trump administration ’s narrative of the events and are being pressured to sign deportation orders, according to their lawyer and lawmakers. The three men, who were arrested by immigration officials during the incident, denied that the driver of the vehicle, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, “weaponized” his vehicle against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. They also told their lawyer that there was never an ICE official in front of the van and that the shots that killed Salgado came from the “sides” of the vehicle. On early Tuesday morning, while Salgado, his brother and two men were heading to work in Houston, he was shot and killed during a “targeted enforcement operation” by ICE officials. It is the latest shooting by federal immigration officials amid the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigrant campaign. ‘New terrifying levels’: 10 people fatally shot by immigration officials in Trump’s second term Read more Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, a Texas attorney representing two of the men in the van, said during a press conference on Friday his clients “reiterated that at no point was there ever an agent standing in front of the vehicle, nor was an agent ever placed in the line of danger”. The men’s claims were first reported by the Washington Post. The latest revelation comes as family members, local officials, lawmakers and civil rights groups desperately attempt to learn more about Salgado’s death. Further confirmation may be hard to access: the ICE officers involved in the incident were not wearing body cameras and their cars did not have dash-cams, the Texas representative Sylvia Garcia said on Friday at the press conference after speaking with ICE’s acting director, David Venturella. Democrats have repeatedly called for ICE and other homeland security officials to wear body cameras when conducting arrest operations, after the shooting deaths of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge there in January. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repeatedly claimed that Salgado “weaponized” his vehicle and attempted to hit an ICE officer, leading the officer to discharge his weapon. The claims this week echoed similar statements by DHS officials, which have been previously used to justify other ICE-