Second witness in Houston ICE shooting case ordered released by federal judge

A federal judge has ordered the release of a second witness to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent in Houston's East End, according to court records filed Monday.

The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to release Daniel Tirado Pantoja from custody within 48 hours. Authorities must release him in a public location within the Southern District of Texas, and his attorneys must receive three hours' notice before he is let go.

Pantoja was a passenger in Salgado Araujo's van on the day ICE officers began following the vehicle before an agent shot and killed Salgado Araujo. He is the second of three witnesses in the van to be ordered released from immigration detention. In July, a federal judge issued a similar order for Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, another passenger who was riding with Salgado Araujo when the shooting happened.

The officers involved in the stop were not wearing body cameras, and their vehicles had no dashcams, so the three men in the van are the only known witnesses to what happened. Attorneys for the passengers have argued that their clients' accounts matter to any investigation of the shooting and that keeping them in detention prevents them from taking part in that investigation or in related legal proceedings.

The third witness, Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, the victim's brother, remains in ICE detention. He has filed his own petition seeking release, as Rojas Pliego and Pantoja did before him.

DHS has said Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the ICE operation that led to his death. The shooting drew scrutiny from Houston-area officials, including U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who has said she was told by the agency's acting director that Salgado Araujo was not who agents set out to find that day.

The case has also drawn a response from Harris County government. County commissioners voted to approve $2.5 million to fund the district attorney's independent investigation into the shooting, a move separate from any federal review of the agent's conduct. The funding decision came as pressure built locally for an accounting of what happened when officers began trailing the van and the confrontation that followed.

Rojas Pliego, released from a detention center in July, said afterward that witnessing the shooting left him traumatized and unable to sleep. His account, and any statement Pantoja gives after his release, could become part of the investigation into the agent's actions, though neither man's release resolves the immigration cases against them. Attorneys for both men said their fight to remain in the country legally continues even as they are freed from detention while that process plays out.

The order for Pantoja's release does not address the criminal or administrative status of the ICE agent who fired the fatal shot. That matter remains under review as part of the county-funded probe and any parallel federal inquiry into the shooting.

Pantoja is due to be released within 48 hours of Monday's filing. Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo's petition remains pending; if granted, none of the three witnesses in the van would remain in ICE custody. No hearing date for his petition had been set as of Tuesday.