ICE Breaker

Crowd packs Houston City Hall to demand action, express anger after ICE shooting https://t.co/JP4G0lYuQE

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) July 14, 2026

 After the shooting, Houston Mayor John Whitmire said, many times, the city could do nothing. Ever the weathervane:

City Council Member Alejandra Salinas spoke after King, saying she attends her church: “We are going to be out there protesting with you, and we are going to do everything to make sure HPD does everything in its power to make sure no stone is unturned, and we get justice for Lorenzo.”

Whitmire committed to conducting a local investigation into the shooting on Friday, days after he said the city had no jurisdiction to investigate the involvement of federal agents.

Whitmire also on Tuesday directed Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz to send a letter to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Freeman Martin and ask for the Texas Rangers to conduct their own investigation. This came a day after Martin said that DPS has “received no request from any local law enforcement agency” for assistance in the shooting investigation, according to a letter he sent in response to a July 8 demand from several Democratic lawmakers for the state agency to open its own probe.

DPS didn’t immediately respond to The Texas Tribune’s question about the Houston leaders’ request.

Diaz also met with the FBI on Tuesday regarding the case, according to his letter and a social media post by the federal agency. Other attendees, the FBI’s post said, included federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas, the Texas Rangers and Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which is also running its own investigation into the shooting.

More importantly, is our children learning?

City Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz told the audience they have another tool to hold leaders accountable: voting.

“Everybody here is appalled, but it’s not much we can do if we don’t have you doing more than coming and talking and protesting,” she said. “We need you at the polls.”

Jeana Magallon, a Houston Independent School District teacher, told the City Council about breaking up a fight between two students and telling them about the “importance of talking out our issues” and “getting a trusted adult involved in their problems.”

The response stunned her: “My fifth-grade student looked me in the eyes and said, ‘That’s not real life, miss. ICE wouldn’t do that to me. Police don’t do that. They fight, they hurt us.’”

“What could I say to him?” Magallon said through tears. “We are teaching our children to expect violence towards them. So please, for my students, for our children, justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — this is on all of you.”

Kendrick Sampson, a Houston resident and actor, asked the City Council, “Why aren’t y’all protecting us? Where do y’all draw the line?”

“It should only take one, it should be not one more, not one more murder,” he said. “If you’re not going to protect us, we should not protect y’all. We shouldn’t protect y’all seats.”

Maria Cervantes, a 57-year-old Houston resident, said: “ICE hunts us worse than animals because when we call animal control, do they just shoot the animal? No, they pick them up right alive.”

“I don’t even consider ICE law enforcement,” she continued. “They’re just like hunting dogs that are killing us left and right.”