Speaking alongside Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, state lawmakers, Houston police Chief Noa Diaz, and Houston City Council members, a visibly emotional Whitmire described meeting earlier in the day with Lorenzo Salgado’s family and said their grief has become Houston’s grief.<\/p>\n
“Eighty hours ago, the Salgado family’s life will never be the same,” a visibly emotional Whitmire said. “Mr. Salgado was chased by unmarked vehicles before he could identify himself and speak as a Houstonian. He was shot and killed.”<\/p>\n
Whitmire said he assured the family that city leaders would use “all our resources in our waking hours” to pursue what he described as an independent and transparent investigation.<\/p>\n
The mayor also stressed that Houston police had no role in the federal immigration operation itself.<\/p>\n
“When we learned about it, the FBI secured the scene,” Whitmire said.<\/p>\n
Although Whitmire acknowledged earlier this week that federal authorities control the criminal investigation, he said conversations with Mayor Pro Tem Martha Castex-Tatum, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and state lawmakers have expanded efforts to seek outside involvement from agencies including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
“This is unacceptable anywhere in the United States,” Whitmire said. “It’s not a Hispanic community pain, it’s a Houstonian pain.”<\/p>\n
Whitmire also defended Houston’s immigrant community, saying immigrants “make Houston a great city” and urging residents to view the shooting as an issue that extends beyond immigration politics.<\/p>\n
Garcia echoed the mayor’s remarks, saying “ICE is out of control” and calling for broader changes to how federal immigration enforcement is conducted.<\/p>\n
Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz added they currently do not have access to the information federal investigators have, but HPD is working to meet with the FBI on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking alongside Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, state lawmakers, Houston police Chief Noa Diaz, and Houston City Council members, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1836,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-368723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronnews","tag-chronstaff","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}