'He Did Not Deserve to Die': Son of Houston Man Killed by ICE Demands Independent Investigation

Ronaldo Salgado described his father's final hour in devastating detail Wednesday — and said the family learned Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was dead from a news report, not from ICE, DHS, or the hospital.

WASHINGTON — Ronaldo Salgado didn’t recognize his father’s face in the video already circulating across Houston’s East End. He recognized the voice — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, crying for help as he bled out on Canal Street, shot inside his own work van by ICE agents in unmarked cars.

“I recognized him immediately,” Ronaldo told reporters Wednesday, “not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street bleeding out.”

That single detail sat at the center of a Houston press conference where Salgado’s family, joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and civil rights advocates, demanded an independent, non-federal investigation into a killing they say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has yet to honestly explain.

A Man of Routine

Ronaldo, a teacher and University of Houston graduate, described his father as a man whose life ran on a schedule he never broke in nearly 35 years in the United States. “He began each day the same way,” Ronaldo said, “and always ended it by coming home, sitting on the porch, eating a hearty meal made by my mother, going to sleep, and doing it all over again the next day.”

Salgado spent three decades building houses in the Houston suburbs, eventually building his own home in the East End with a crew of family and loved ones. He raised three sons — Ronaldo, Lorenzo Jr. (a Tufts University graduate), and a youngest son still in college out of state — all U.S. citizens. Ronaldo said his father had begun the process of securing legal status through a work permit: “We dotted every I, crossed every T, filled every document, attended every appointment. He was close to obtaining his legal status.”

Six Minutes That Ended a Life

Ronaldo laid out his father’s last morning in granular detail. Salgado woke at 5 a.m., showered, ate breakfast his wife had cooked, and left the house at 5:50 a.m. — lunch, coffee, and work boots loaded into his van, his dog patted goodbye — to pick up his construction crew before heading to a job site in North Houston.

By 6:45 a.m., he should have been collecting the last of his workers. At 6:55 a.m., Ronaldo said, “my dad had been shot inside his van near the intersection of Wayside [and] Canal by ICE agents in unmarked cars.”

The family says Salgado had no way of knowing the vehicles pursuing him belonged to federal agents. Because no ICE or police markings were visible, Ronaldo said his father may have believed he was being robbed. “Had my father seen an emblem of ICE, or an emblem that says anything about a law enforcement agency, my father would have complied,” Ronaldo said. “He would have not run away, because he feared for his life.”

Three Hours Without Answers

What followed, Ronaldo said, was a frantic search his family conducted largely alone. Notified around 7 a.m. that “something bad” had happened involving ICE, he drove first to his father’s job site, then — after seeing a Facebook post about ICE activity at Wayside and Canal — to the East End, arriving at 8:35 a.m. to find Canal Street cordoned off and his father’s van abandoned, with no sign of Lorenzo.

A LULAC representative on scene helped connect the family to U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, who confirmed Salgado had been taken to Ben Taub Hospital — the same hospital where Ronaldo, his brother, and his own child were born. Garcia later spent hours at the hospital with the family, Ronaldo said.

No one from ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, or local law enforcement contacted the family directly. “I learned of my father’s passing from a news report on social media,” Ronaldo said, “not the hospital, not law enforcement.” He said he then had to call his mother before she found out the same way.

Three Other Men, Still Missing

Salgado was driving three coworkers to the job site when agents moved in, including Ronaldo’s uncle. All three were arrested at the scene. “I have not heard from them,” Ronaldo said, “but I hope that they are able to provide their own statements to prove that my father feared for his life as unmarked cars followed my dad, who only wanted to get back to work and back to us.”

A Federal Account the Family Disputes

DHS and ICE have said Salgado rammed an ICE vehicle, ignored verbal commands, and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer” before the agent fired in self-defense. The FBI is investigating the alleged assault on the officer; DHS is conducting its own internal review.

Ronaldo and LULAC leaders openly challenged that account Wednesday, pointing to Salgado’s three-decade record in Houston, his pending legal-status paperwork, and his alleged confusion at being pursued by unmarked cars — and they’re demanding the evidence to test it: body-camera footage, dash-cam video, bystander cellphone video, and dispatch records, all preserved and released.

Demanding an Investigation Federal Agencies Won’t Run

LULAC CEO Juan Proaño said “what we know is very thin” and called for “a full and transparent investigation,” with every piece of evidence “preserved and released to an independent investigator and to the public.” LULAC announced a $5,000 reward for information or video that could lead to “the arrest, indictment, conviction, or exoneration of any person involved.”

LULAC National President Domingo Garcia was blunter about where trust has broken down: “We don’t expect the truth from the Department of Justice or from the FBI,” he said. “We expect a whitewash.” LULAC and other advocates are pressing the Houston Police Department and local prosecutors to run their own investigation, separate from DHS’s internal review and the FBI’s probe.

“He did not deserve to die,” Ronaldo said. “He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.’ He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream.”