For 35 years, a Mexican father built homes in Houston. Then a routine drive ended in tragedy

By Dalia Faheid, Chris Boyette, CNN

(CNN) — For the last 35 years, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s day began the same way: He woke up at 5 a.m., kissed his wife goodbye, loaded his work van and drove off to pick up his construction crew for work in Houston.

But on Tuesday, Salgado Araujo’s day would not end as it always did. He would not come home and eat a hearty dinner prepared by his loving wife of 40 years. He would not spend the rest of the evening resting on the porch listening to music with his dog by his side, at the house he had built for his family. He would not doze off after a 14-hour workday, ready to do it all again the next day.

Around 7 a.m., as the 52-year-old father of three picked up the last of his crew in Houston’s East End area before heading north to finish construction on several houses, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in an unmarked car fatally shot the Mexican man inside his van, Salgado Araujo’s oldest son recounted Wednesday.

ICE said Salgado Araujo had attempted to evade arrest when agents were trying to conduct a traffic stop as part of a “targeted operation.” He rammed into a law enforcement vehicle and refused to follow several verbal commands before an ICE agent fired his weapon in self-defense, the agency told CNN in a statement Tuesday.

Salgado Araujo’s family denies the agency’s account, saying they believe he would have stopped and complied with federal agents if he knew the car following him belonged to ICE or other law enforcement agents. CNN has reached out to the agency for more information.

Ronaldo Salgado said his father had no criminal history and had submitted an application for a work permit. He described him as a private, hardworking family man who spent three decades supporting his wife and three sons by building hundreds of homes in Houston suburbs. Salgado Araujo, his son said, “never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family.”

“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” Ronaldo Salgado said at a news conference Wednesday.

People who knew Salgado Araujo described him as dependable and kind, according to a GoFundMe for his family.

Salgado Araujo was living in the US without legal permission, ICE said, without specifying whether the agents had been looking for him. He does not appear to have a criminal record, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s office.

He is among several people who were severely injured or killed after being shot by federal immigration enforcement agents this year. Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three who loved to sing and write poetry, was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis in January. Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse dedicated to helping others, was fatally shot by immigration agents later that month.

“Help me! They shot me!”

Ronaldo Salgado said his father’s last day was “vividly replaying in my head over and over again.”

That Tuesday morning, Ronaldo Salgado said his mom told him “something bad” happened to his father. They didn’t know what it was, except that it involved ICE.

Ronaldo Salgado immediately drove to his father’s work site an hour away to find his van.

Salgado Araujo’s son said he had spoken with his lawyers about what to do if he was taken by ICE: He would decline to sign anything and call his son or his wife to get him released.

“Had he had been detained by ICE, he would have wanted the van to be delivered to the work site, so that the other workers that were there could finish up the houses and the families could get paid,” he said.

After his search came up empty, Ronaldo Salgado came across a Facebook post about ICE activity in the East End area. Around 8:30 a.m., he drove there to find his father’s van on a blocked off street, but still no sign of him.

“I frantically called family, friends, loved ones to see if they can find any information,” Ronaldo Salgado said.

Then a video posted on social media stopped him in his tracks.

“I recognized him immediately, not from his appearance, but from his voice crying for help as he lay on the street bleeding out,” Ronaldo Salgado said through tears as his voice broke.

Video taken after the shooting shows a federal agent on the phone as he holds onto a wounded man, who is moaning in pain and lying face down.

The right side of his stomach was bleeding, said Houston resident Juliet Martinez, who recorded the video and shared it with CNN. “He was screaming for help and screaming that he was in pain. He yelled, ‘Help me! They shot me!’”

After being at the scene for hours waiting for answers, Ronaldo Salgado said he found out which hospital his father had been taken to.

“With all the hope in the world, I drove to Ben Taub Hospital, the hospital that I was born in, my brother Lorenzo Jr. was born in, and my youngest was born in,” he said.

At the hospital, no one could give Ronaldo Salgado answers about his father’s condition, he said.

He later learned of his death from reports on social media, which local organizations and elected officials confirmed. He called his mom to relay the news: The man they had called “El mundo entero,” or “the whole world,” had been killed.

Three other men in the van, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, were detained, according to his family.

A hard-working family man

Ronaldo Salgado said he wants the world to remember his father not for how he died, but for his life as a family man who believed in the American dream.

“He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of ‘Mexican man shot and killed by ICE,’” he said. “He deserved to live a quiet life as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a husband, a father, and a job creator for dozens of men who also wanted the American dream.”

Salgado Araujo and his wife met when they were teenagers in Mexico, according to their son. He raised his three sons “on the idea of education taking us so far in life,” Ronaldo Salgado said. The eldest son became a teacher, while his brothers went into engineering.

He ran his own construction business and “was known for his work ethic, his fairness, and his willingness to help anyone who needed it,” the GoFundMe page says. When people knocked on his door asking Salgado Araujo for opportunities, he would hire them to work with him, his son recounted.

Salgado Araujo, over the last year and a half, submitted pictures and statements from employers and loved ones for a work permit application, his son recalled, saying he was “close to obtaining his legal status.”

“We dotted every ‘i’, crossed every ‘t,’ filled every document, attended every appointment,” Ronaldo Salgado said.

Ronaldo Salgado, along with activists and Texas Democratic lawmakers, called for a full investigation into his father’s death.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General is leading an investigation into the shooting, according to ICE. The FBI’s Houston field office is investigating the alleged assault on a federal law enforcement officer.

Ronaldo Salgado said his father “only wanted to get back to work and back to us.”

“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.

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CNN’s Karina Tsui and Caroll Alvarado contributed to this report.