Substance found in van after Houston ICE shooting wasn’t drugs, DA and U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia say 37%
By Uriel J. García19% Texas Tribune9%
7/24/2026, 11:05:27 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Self-Serving Bias, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 26.1% saturation with 230 hits. Analysis detected 1,696 faulty-reasoning hits from 881 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 43.5% and a BS Rank of 37% (13,849 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 63.30% of the article peer group.
The "crystal-like substance" the FBI found inside the van of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — the 52-year-old who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Houston earlier this month — was not an illicit drug, according to U.S.
Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, the Harris County District Attorney's Office and a lawyer representing Salgado Araujo's brother.
"We can now confirm that the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado's van was not a narcotic or any other illicit substance," Garcia said on social media, without revealing the source of the information.
"As his family has said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer.
The attempt to cast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado's name has failed."
RELATED: Congressional Democrats demand ICE reforms in wake of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo killing in Houston
District Attorney Sean Teare's Office said in a statement that it was not commenting on the test results — which have not been publicly released by the FBI — but that it also has "been notified that lab testing of the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's van was negative for narcotics/ illicit drugs."
Ruby Powers, a Houston immigration attorney who is representing Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, Lorenzo's brother, said the Texas Department of Public Safety, which tested the substance, told Salgado Araujo's family the preliminary test results show it wasn't an illegal drug.
Powers added the full lab results will come Monday.
"An unproven claim was allowed to circulate before it was tested, and the way it was made public did real damage, diverting attention from what actually matters in this case.
Lorenzo was shot, and no lab report answers for that," Powers said.
The U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas said it does not have "any additional information to provide at this time."
DPS, FBI and the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security, which are investigating the shooting, didn't immediately respond to emails from The Texas Tribune seeking comment.
Last week, the FBI, in an affidavit seeking a search warrant, wrote that an agent spotted plastic bags inside Salgado Araujo's van and suspected that they contained methamphetamine.
FBI Special Agent David McNeilly, who filed the search warrant application, wrote in the affidavit the three "small clear plastic bags are consistent with how users of drugs package controlled substances for distribution, manufacturing, and possession."
RELATED: FBI searches van involved in ICE shooting for drugs, affidavit says
The application for the search warrant was made public a day after it was filed in court on Tuesday — unusually fast for federal agents, who don't typically publicize such information before a search has been completed.
Powers previously said the baggies were filled with granulated salt that they used to mix with water and lemon to make a homemade electrolyte drink while working in the Texas summer heat.
Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, an attorney for two other passengers in the van, also announced on social media that his clients said there were no illegal drugs in the vehicle and that they would sometimes carry salt to mix with water and help prevent cramps.
Salgado Araujo, an undocumented father of three U.S. citizen sons who had started the process to legalize his immigration status, was on his way to work at a construction site July 7 with his brother and two other workers when ICE agents in unmarked SUVs stopped their van in east Houston.
An unnamed ICE spokesperson said that Salgado Araujo "rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense."
The three men say that Salgado Araujo did not try to run over anyone and none of the agents were in danger.
"At no moment were the agents in front of the vehicle," Daniel Tirado Pantoja, a rear passenger in the van, said in his hand-written statement in Spanish.
"Lorenzo (Salgado Araujo) had come to a full stop while the agents fired."
Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, who was also in the back seat, wrote in his statement that Salgado Araujo had already stopped the van before the ICE agent shot him in the stomach.
Rojas Pliego wrote in his statement that it is "impossible to say that they were going to get run over.
That's a lie — no officer was behind nor in front — they were on the sides."
Aaron Reitz, the new Assistant Attorney General for the Southern District of Texas, later offered additional details about the pursuit and shooting.
Reitz said federal officers were investigating two Guatemalan men in the same neighborhood who were also driving a white van.
Salgado Araujo and the other three men are Mexican citizens.
According to Reitz, once ICE encountered Salgado Araujo's white van, the driver initially evaded them before agents spotted the van again and surrounded it.
"Preliminary 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," Reitz alleged.
Alex Nguyen and Lomi Kriel contributed to this story.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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