Small bags inside a van whose driver was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent contained salt, not drugs, said a lawyer for a witness, contradicting federal agents.<\/p>\n
Investigators with the F.B.I. got a warrant to search the van on Tuesday after telling a federal judge they believed that a \u201ccrystal-like\u201d substance in the plastic bags might be methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Ruby Powers, a lawyer for Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, who is the victim\u2019s younger brother and was a passenger in the van, said in a statement that \u201cafter consulting with my client and his family, our understanding is that this was granulated salt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like other construction workers, her client and his brother would mix the salt into water and add lemon as a kind of homemade energy drink during their days working in the hot Houston sun, Ms. Powers said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe puts it in a water bottle and makes his own Gatorade, an electrolyte mix,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The Harris County district attorney, Sean Teare, also cast doubt on the presence of drugs Thursday. \u201cBased on what we\u2019ve learned about the passengers, it\u2019s inconsistent that drugs were in the van,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The drug debate obscured, for the moment, the circumstances that led to the fatal shooting of the van\u2019s driver, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, by an ICE agent.<\/p>\n
Late Thursday, Aaron Reitz, the newly appointed<\/a> U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, released a video statement<\/a> that provided new details in the official account of the encounter.<\/p>\n Mr. Reitz said that two vehicles, each with two ICE agents inside, turned on their police lights and tried to pull over the white van being driven by Mr. Salgado Araujo. \u201cThe aliens then fled, conducting a rapid U-turn and hopping a median to get away,\u201d he said. \u201cThe agents chose not to pursue. Later that morning, the agents came across the van again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis time the agents successfully surrounded the vehicle,\u201d Mr. Reitz said. Two of the agents got out of their vehicles and told Mr. Salgado Araujo to put the van in park, he said. \u201cPreliminary information indicates the driver shifted the van into reverse, then forward again, while an officer was partially inside the van or immediately next to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Reitz said that during the confrontation, though the statement did not make clear exactly when, \u201cone of the officers fired a single shot,\u201d striking Mr. Salgado Araujo.<\/p>\n