What federal agents thought might be meth in a Houston work van was more likely someone's DIY Gatorade, a lawyer says. Ruby Powers, an attorney for a passenger in the van—whose driver, 52-year-old construction worker Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent—says the "crystal-like" substance found in small plastic bags was just table salt, reports the New York Times. Workers mixed it with water and lemon as a cheap electrolyte drink, she notes.
The local district attorney also questioned the idea that drugs were in the vehicle, saying what investigators know about the men doesn't fit that narrative. The dispute over the bags adds another layer to an already contentious case. Federal officials say ICE agents tried to stop the van on July 7 while searching for someone not in the vehicle. The van allegedly fled, was later boxed in, and moved while an agent was partly inside or beside it, prompting a single fatal shot, according to the US attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
Two passengers told a lawmaker the officers never IDed themselves, and that the shot came through a front passenger window. The FBI, which publicly filed its search warrant application with photos of the bags, isn't releasing lab results, which Powers—who represents Salgado Araujo's brother, one of the van's passengers—says should be irrelevant to the shooting.
"No test result, whatever it ultimately shows, will change the fact that deadly force was used against Lorenzo," Powers said, per the Houston Chronicle. "You cannot shoot first and ask questions later." The three surviving passengers—key witnesses who lack legal status—remain in federal detention, raising fears they could be deported before local authorities can fully investigate, per the Times. The AP reports that a public vigil for Salgado Araujo had been set for Thursday evening.
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