1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

At 6:50 AM on July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — a 52-year-old father of three, a small business owner who spent 35 years building a life in this country – was picking up the last members of his construction crew in Houston's East End.Minutes later, an ICE agent shot him through the torso. He died at Ben Taub Hospital. The Harris County Medical Examiner has ruled his death a homicide. Lorenzo was not under investigation. He was not a suspect. He wasn't even the person ICE claims it was looking for that morning. He was a worker driving a work van to a job site when a deportation agent gunned him down. ICE claims Lorenzo tried to ram an officer with his van. But the three men who were in that van with him say the officer opened fire almost immediately, and that Lorenzo never drove toward him. And where are those witnesses now? ICE detained them. The agents involved weren't wearing body cameras. No federal video or photos have been released. DHS even released Lorenzo's name to the public before his own family had been notified.  This is at least the eighth death in the administration's mass deportation campaign (not including deaths of people in ICE detention). ICE has used this same "he tried to run us over" story before, and video evidence has contradicted it before. A man is dead. The witnesses have been disappeared into detention. The cameras were off. That is not law enforcement. That is impunity… and impunity is a policy choice that we refuse to accept! We DEMAND an independent investigation to this government sanctioned homicide of innocent people in America!