More than 24 hours after a federal immigration enforcement officer fatally shot a man in Houston, Mayor John Whitmire said the Houston Police Department was not involved in the incident.
"I wish it was something that we just didn't have to deal with, but I do recognize the good training of HPD and the policies of Chief [Noe] Diaz that there was no involvement of HPD," he said during a city council meeting on Wednesday.
In his first public remarks on the shooting, Whitmire also labeled the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as "brought to us by our federal officials," calling for communication with the Texas congressional delegation.
Whitmire also spoke about a "chase that ICE was involved in" two days prior that did not involve the Houston Police Department.
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On Tuesday, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston resident whom federal authorities have said was a Mexican citizen without legal status in the U.S. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security alleged he was attempting to evade arrest and "weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer."
The shooting has sparked an outcry from immigration advocacy organizations and elected officials. Other Houston City Council members spoke about the shooting on Wednesday, with some calling for an independent investigation of what led up to the shooting and how ICE responded to it.
Council member Joaquin Martinez, who serves the East End area where the shooting took place, stressed that HPD was not involved in the shooting, saying it is "important to ensure that we're not conflating the two [agencies]."
"I think at the end of the day, the message is we need to ensure that federal government is being held accountable as well, specifically in this scenario, ICE," Martinez said. "The fear is real, the pain is real, and we need to ensure that as Houstonians — and as a Houstonian has left us yesterday — that we focus on public safety."
Earlier this year, the Houston City Council was in a political fight with state officials over a policy dictating how much, or how little, coordination HPD could have with ICE agents. The council ended up repealing the ordinance that prohibited HPD officers from detaining people or prolonging traffic stops due to ICE-issued civil administrative warrants, which are characterized as warrants "commanding the arrest of an individual either to conduct removal proceedings or for removal." HPD also issued guidance that enables officers to “wait a reasonable amount of time” for ICE to “obtain custody” of people with civil immigration warrants.
Houston Public Media’s Dominic Anthony Walsh, Kyle McClenagan and Bianca Seward contributed to this report.
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