HOUSTON — The prosecutor responsible for the largest county in Texas says the federal government has not released the single fact every homicide investigation begins with: the name of the person who pulled the trigger.
Six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old homebuilder, on a street in Houston’s East End, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare told reporters Monday that his investigators are being forced to work backward — canvassing businesses, chasing tips, reconstructing the agents’ movements — because no federal agency will identify them.
A Blackout With No Local Precedent
Ordinarily, Teare said, when a Texas officer or deputy kills someone, his office has the shooter’s name inside 12 hours. That standard, he told the Texas Tribune’s news conference audience, has now been exceeded roughly twelvefold.
“No one on the state level knows who they were or where they are right now,” Teare said, calling the situation unacceptable.
So his office has begun treating the killing the way it would treat any shooting by an unidentified assailant. Appearing alongside Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, Teare said his prosecutors intend to run the case exactly as they run every other criminal matter. “We are good at identifying individuals who don’t want to be found,” he said. He also warned that resolution could be many months away, and possibly years…