HOUSTON \u2013 More than 100 people gathered outside Houston City Hall Sunday evening, filling the plaza with candles, prayers and chalk drawings as they honored the life of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and renewed calls for answers following his fatal shooting by an ICE agent.<\/p>\n
Instead of chants, the sound of chalk scraping across the pavement echoed through the crowd as mourners wrote messages of remembrance and demands for justice.<\/p>\n
The vigil comes five days after the 52-year-old was shot and killed during an ICE enforcement operation in Houston\u2019s Magnolia Park neighborhood.<\/p>\n
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Salgado Araujo attempted to evade arrest and used his van as a weapon, prompting an ICE agent to shoot him in self-defense.<\/p>\n
Since then, federal officials have acknowledged Salgado Araujo was not the person agents intended to arrest, and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the agents involved were not wearing body cameras. <\/p>\n
Many at Sunday\u2019s vigil said Salgado Araujo\u2019s death has shaken Houston\u2019s Hispanic community because they saw themselves or their loved ones in him.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Manjarres, who grew up in Magnolia Park and attended middle school with Salgado Araujo\u2019s son, spent the evening drawing the Virgen de Guadalupe in chalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a shock that it happened to somebody that we knew personally,\u201d Manjarres said. \u201cI immediately thought about my mom, about my family. It could have happened to anybody in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manjarres described Magnolia Park as \u201cthe heart of the Hispanic community in Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a community full of love, full of compassion, full of heart, full of hardworking people,\u201d said Manjarres. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to fight because he does deserve justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
April Davila drew birds on the concrete as a symbol of hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cBirds are pretty. They give hope,\u201d Davila said. \u201cI know he\u2019s gone, but he\u2019ll be back somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frida Adame, a DACA recipient who helped organize the vigil, said Salgado Araujo\u2019s death felt deeply personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could have been me. It could have been my mom,\u201d Adame said. \u201cHe was the definition of the American dream. He was just a man going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adame said she and another community member organized the vigil independently to give people a place to grieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just two civilians that wanted to bring community together and mourn,\u201d Adame said.<\/p>\n
She said organizers plan to speak during Tuesday\u2019s Houston City Council meeting, where they will again push city leaders to limit cooperation with ICE.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to demand that Whitmire gets ICE out of Houston,\u201d Adame said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop until he gets the justice that he deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston City Controller Chris Hollins attended the vigil and stood with the crowd as people lit candles and prayed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look around, this represents the Houston community,\u201d Hollins said. \u201cWe\u2019re here in peace. We\u2019re here in respect. But we\u2019re demanding justice for Lorenzo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ernestine Pi\u00f1a Sandoval, who volunteers with St. Ann Catholic Church assisting immigrant families, said she attended because she believes immigrants deserve dignity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come here to work. They want to take care of their families,\u201d Sandoval said.<\/p>\n
According to Salgado Araujo\u2019s family, he was driving to pick up construction workers Tuesday morning when the encounter unfolded.<\/p>\n
ICE says Salgado Araujo attempted to strike an agent with his van before the agent opened fire.<\/p>\n
Surveillance videos obtained by KPRC 2 captured portions of the encounter, and Salgado Araujo\u2019s family and attorneys representing the three men who were inside the van have disputed ICE\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n
The New York Times has reported the federal operation was originally targeting two Guatemalan nationals who were not inside Salgado Araujo\u2019s van.<\/p>\n
Salgado Araujo\u2019s son, Ronaldo, said his father had lived in the United States for 35 years and was in the process of obtaining a work permit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no way in any lifetime that he would have wanted to be known as someone who got shot and killed by ICE,\u201d Ronaldo Salgado told NBC News. \u201cHe just wanted to live a simple life of work and family.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three men who were inside Salgado Araujo\u2019s van remain in ICE custody at a processing facility in Conroe, according to their attorney.<\/p>\n
Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz is expected to meet with FBI Houston on Tuesday to request access to evidence related to the shooting. Community members also plan to speak during Tuesday\u2019s Houston City Council meeting as they continue calling for an independent investigation.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 More than 100 people gathered outside Houston City Hall Sunday evening, filling the plaza with candles,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,131393,58,131396,57,131395,131392,131394],"class_list":["post-370893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-city-hall-protest","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-hispanic-community","tag-houston-news","tag-ice-body-cameras","tag-immigrant-rights-houston","tag-justice-for-lorenzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370893","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=370893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}