\n The substance collected from the van driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo when he was shot and killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Houston this month was not drugs, according to a spokesperson for the Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office who said their office had been notified of the results.\n <\/p>\n
\n This comes after the FBI filed a warrant application<\/a> saying the agency had cause to believe an investigator found illegal drugs in the vehicle being driven by the 52-year-old Mexican immigrant and longtime Texas resident when he was fatally shot on July 7.\n <\/p>\n \n When reached for comment, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Texas and the Texas Department of Public Safety said they did not have additional information to provide.\n <\/p>\n \n The FBI declined to comment when contacted by CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n The FBI\u2019s suspicion about drugs became public in mid-July after a court unsealed the warrant application. That drew pushback from Salgado Araujo\u2019s family, whose lawyer said<\/a> she believed the substance was salt, used to make a homemade electrolyte mix.\n <\/p>\n \n An attorney for Salgado Araujo\u2019s brother, who witnessed the shooting, said Friday \u201can unproven claim was allowed to circulate before it was tested, and the way it was made public did real damage, diverting attention from what actually matters in this case.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Federal authorities\u2019 account of the fatal shooting \u2014 that ICE agents tried to stop a van containing Salgado Araujo and three passengers during an immigration enforcement operation, and an agent fired in self-defense as Salgado Araujo maneuvered the vehicle \u2014 has faced scrutiny<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The officers involved were not wearing body-worn cameras<\/a>. Salgado Araujo was one of two people fatally shot this month by ICE officers during attempted vehicle stops. The shootings in Houston and Maine<\/a> reignited debate about ICE tactics<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNone of the agents involved were wearing body cameras, so we\u2019ll never have that perspective,\u201d said one of Salgado Araujo\u2019s sons earlier Friday at an oversight forum examining the use of force by ICE in the shooting.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNow they\u2019re saying there may have been drugs in the vehicle, which anyone who knew our father would tell you is absurd,\u201d Lorenzo Salgado Araujo Jr. said at the hearing, held by members of several congressional committees.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe did not use drugs. He abhorred them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Texas Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia said an attempt to \u201ccast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado\u2019s name has failed,\u201d in her response<\/a> to learning of the test results.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAs his family has said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer,\u201d Garcia said.\n <\/p>\n \n Salgado Araujo was driving to work<\/a> with three members of his construction crew, including his brother, when ICE agents tried to stop his van during a \u201ctargeted enforcement operation,\u201d the agency said.\n <\/p>\n \n The agency did not specify whether Salgado Araujo was the intended target, but a source with preliminary details about the incident said he was not<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n ICE initially said Salgado Araujo \u201crammed\u201d into the ICE vehicle and attempted to run over an agent with his van, which led to an officer firing his weapon in \u201cself-defense.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Men who were in Salgado Araujo\u2019s work van say ICE\u2019s version of events was false, attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra and Garcia said<\/a>. Two of the men told Garcia the agents\u2019 vehicles bumped into them and then swayed into the van, forcing them to stop.\n <\/p>\n \n The agents never identified themselves to the men, they told Garcia. The men told Garcia agents had exited their vehicles and run toward the van, she told CNN. They pulled out the passengers as one of the agents fired one shot at Salgado Araujo, she said they told her.\n <\/p>\n \n Hours before the shooting, agents were investigating two Guatemalan men known to be driving a white van who had previously evaded arrest and were potentially subject to deportation, said Aaron Reitz, the US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.\n <\/p>\n \n While searching for that van, officers received a report of a similar one in the area that then fled when they tried to pull it over, Reitz said.\n <\/p>\n \n Later that morning, officers located what they believed to be the same van and \u201csuccessfully surrounded the vehicle,\u201d Reitz said.\n <\/p>\n \n The van was registered to Salgado Araujo, who agents determined to be in the country illegally, a source with preliminary details about the incident told CNN<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Federal authorities have not indicated that the ICE agents who stopped the van thought drugs were inside when the stop happened.\n <\/p>\n \n One of the federal agents at the scene said he saw small bags of a white, crystal-like substance inside the van.\n <\/p>\n \n That officer, FBI Special Agent David McNielly, filed a warrant application a week after the shooting citing probable cause for \u201cdistribution, manufacturing, or possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance,\u201d the warrant read in part.\n <\/p>\n \n But the search warrant was unsealed and made public the next day without explanation, prompting backlash from advocates, officials and legal experts who called it unusual for such information to be made public during an ongoing criminal investigation.\n <\/p>\n \n The move by the federal government has \u201cdemonstrated that it is more interested in creating a false narrative than in seeking the truth,\u201d the ACLU of Texas said in a statement Friday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Salgados deserve real answers about what happened to their father, and we reiterate our call for an independent and complete investigation,\u201d the ACLU said.\n <\/p>\n