Son says father killed by ICE officer in Houston ‘did not deserve to die’

The son of a Mexican man fatally shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Houston, Texas called Wednesday for an independent investigation into the incident.

“He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE,'” Ronaldo Salgado said during a press conference, according to ABC News.

According to ICE, officers attempted to stop a vehicle driven by Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on Tuesday. The agency said Araujo was undocumented and failed to comply with verbal commands.

The incident marks the second ICE-involved shooting in less than a week.

Ronaldo Salgado, joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Tex., Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones and Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Tex., said he is “deeply heartbroken” by his father’s death.

“He dedicated his life in the United States to giving his family the American dream. He raised my brothers and I on the idea of education taking us so far in life,” he said.

“I am deeply heartbroken to see that the man who taught me the value of hard work, family values and education will no longer spend an evening on that porch,” he said of his father and the family home.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s death came six days after an ICE officer fired a weapon during an incident in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the agency also alleged a suspect “weaponized his car” before fleeing. The suspect in that case has not been located.