Austin (USA).- The FBI obtained a search warrant for drugs, released this Wednesday, to search the pickup truck that Mexican migrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving when he was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during an operation in Houston last week.
The order, authorized on Tuesday by a federal judge, allows investigators to seize drugs, items related to their consumption, and other potential evidence of crimes of possession, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances.
In an affidavit filed in a Southern District of Texas court, an FBI agent stated that he observed from outside the truck four small plastic bags containing a white, crystalline-looking substance.
Three of them were located in the central part of the dashboard, between the driver and passenger seats, while the fourth was on the floor on the passenger side, according to the court document.
The agent stated that, due to their appearance and packaging, the substances were “consistent” with the look of methamphetamine, although the statement does not indicate that they had been subjected to laboratory tests at that time, nor does it determine who they belonged to.
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The document notes that the FBI evidence collection team photographed the bags from the outside and that, at the time of requesting the warrant, the authorities had not yet entered or searched the van.
The death was not drug-related
According to the sworn statement itself, ICE attempted to stop the van as part of an immigration operation, and there is no indication that the agents suspected at the time that there were illicit substances inside.
It had also not been previously reported that Salgado Araujo or the other three men were linked to drugs or had criminal records related to narcotics.
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The publication of the search warrant is also unusual, as these types of judicial documents are usually kept under seal while the investigation remains open.
“They are fabricating alleged evidence”
David Cruz, spokesperson for the League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac), questioned the new line of investigation in statements to EFE and accused the authorities of trying to construct a narrative to justify the agents’ actions.
“It surprises us and it is truly sad to see how they are fabricating alleged evidence,” stated Cruz, who asserted that the organization does not trust the federal authorities in charge of the case.
“They create a false narrative and then want to adapt that narrative to the evidence they have supposedly found,” added the spokesperson, who demanded that Congress establish “an independent commission to conduct an investigation without any agenda.”
Cruz also regretted that the information was made public one day before Salgado Araujo’s funeral. “How sad. What a shame,” he noted.
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The FBI statement does not claim that the migrant attempted to run over an agent, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintained after the incident.
The other three men traveling in the van, currently held in an immigration detention center, have rejected that version. According to their lawyers, Salgado Araujo did not attempt to run over any agent and the shot entered through the driver’s window.
