Hours after three witnesses questioned the official account of how an immigration agent killed a man in Houston this week, city officials said they would begin their own investigation of the federal government\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
Mayor John Whitmire of Houston said he, the city\u2019s police department and the district attorney\u2019s office would work aggressively to obtain all evidence and uncover the truth, reversing his earlier position that the city had no jurisdiction over the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not settling to wait for an F.B.I. report,\u201d Mr. Whitmire said during a news briefing on Friday afternoon. \u201cWe want answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The episode began about 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant, was driving in East Houston on his way to work at a construction site in a van with three other workers. Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement began tailing him.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the agency said in a statement that Mr. Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, had not followed orders and had tried to run over an officer. An ICE agent fired in self-defense, the statement said. Mr. Araujo was shot in the abdomen and taken to a hospital, where he died.<\/p>\n
No evidence was provided to support ICE\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the three men with Mr. Araujo said through a lawyer that he had not used his vehicle as a weapon or tried to run over the immigration officers. The men were arrested and provided their version of events to the lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who visited them in immigration detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt that what they are saying is the truth,\u201d Mr. Balderas-Ibarra said during a news conference on Friday. \u201cAll three reiterated that at no point was an agent standing in front of the vehicle nor was an agent placed in the line of danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Araujo\u2019s death came as ICE officers are increasing arrests across the United States, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. In five days at the end of June, agents arrested more than 10,000 people, the documents show. From Tuesday through Thursday, ICE officers arrested more than 6,000 people, internal records show.<\/p>\n
Previous surges have been accompanied by violence, and video evidence in recent months has disproved federal law enforcement\u2019s accounts of several shootings.<\/p>\n
In Houston, no video has emerged of the moment when Mr. Araujo was shot. Surveillance and witness videos obtained by The Times show two unmarked ICE vehicles tailing the white van and trying to cut it off. The van does a U-turn before stopping alongside the road, with several immigration agents running toward the vehicle as it comes to a halt.<\/p>\n
A video filmed shortly after the shooting shows agents hovering over a man bleeding and holding his abdomen. More images show another man on the ground, his hands behind his back.<\/p>\n
The ICE agents were not wearing body cameras and none of the vehicles had dashboard cameras, according to Sylvia Garcia, the area\u2019s congresswoman. Ms. Garcia, a Democrat, said she had spoken with David Venturella, the acting director of ICE.<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general\u2019s office is leading an investigation into the shooting, according to the agency\u2019s statement, which also said that the F.B.I.\u2019s Houston office is also looking into the case \u2014 as a potential assault on a federal officer.<\/p>\n
Mr. Araujo\u2019s family and community members this week demanded an independent investigation.<\/p>\n
Initially, Mayor Whitmire, a Democrat, questioned whether the city had that authority. But after the detained witnesses disputed the official account, he said on Friday that the city would act. He told reporters he had contacted the Harris County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Both the district attorney and the mayor said that federal law enforcement agencies were not cooperating with local officials and were tightly controlling evidence. Still, Mayor Whitmire said the city \u201cwould not rest\u201d until it had completed its inquiry.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has fought local scrutiny of its actions.<\/p>\n
Its stance in Houston appears similar to the one it took in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were fatally shot by federal immigration agents in January during an enforcement surge.<\/p>\n
In the case of Ms. Good, a Minnesota agency that investigates police shootings tried to team up with the F.B.I. to determine whether the killing was justified. But senior federal officials ordered the F.B.I. to halt<\/a> the investigation. They instead suggested that prosecutors examine whether Ms. Good had assaulted the ICE agent.<\/p>\n