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"Justice for Lorenzo" echoed through downtown San Antonio Friday evening as more than 100 people gathered at City Hall before marching through downtown to protest the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Houston earlier this week.
Organized by San Antonio Venceremos and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, protesters created a makeshift memorial for Salgado with his photograph, cempasúchil flowers and candles before beginning their march through downtown.
David Cruz of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which partnered with the organizers, said the protest gave people an opportunity to call for accountability.
“We want a complete, transparent, independent investigation. We want to see all the evidence. We want to make sure that the family, the community and the nation sees exactly what those officers were dealing with that compelled them to use deadly force against a man that they wrongfully identified as the real target of the surveillance,” Cruz said.
ICE has said an agent shot Salgado Araujo in self-defense after he allegedly tried to drive his van into an officer during a targeted enforcement operation. An attorney representing two passengers in the van disputes that account, and federal officials have acknowledged Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the operation.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced legal action in response to the shooting. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office are investigating.
Anna Bellizio attended the protest to pray for Salgado and to protest ICE.
“I came here with votive candles and a rosary to pray for him and to pray for the people affected by ICE and also to protest ICE in San Antonio, ICE in the U.S. and to support PSL,” Bellizio said.
Pedro Ruiz also joined the march. He said he attended the protest to seek justice and what he described as a “revolution.”
“I would like to see a revolution type of change, kind of like what’s going on today. More people, more involved, maybe going out to vote, but that’s the least that we can do. You can do much more being out here,” Ruiz said.
