Grim New Details of Fatal ICE Shooting Make It Even Worse

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

The ICE shooting of an unarmed immigrant in Houston — who had lived in the United States for nearly 35 years, raised a family, and had no known prior run-ins with the law — has turned from deeply troubling to acutely tragic as new details of the Tuesday incident have emerged.

The most dismaying new news is that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was not the target of the traffic stop that ended in his shooting death. There was another man in the white work van that Salgado Araujo was driving whom ICE agents thought was one of the two men they were looking for — but that turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

The other news that has come out over the past 24 hours paints a picture of ICE continuing to act with the flagrant disregard for good policing practices and without fear of real accountability:

• Despite a huge infusion of new federal funding and promises to issue body cameras, the agents involved in the incident were not wearing body cams at the time.
• In what is hard not to see as a convenient way of covering up the details of the shooting, ICE has detained the three other men who were in the van, including Salgado Araujo’s brother, and is pressuring them to self deport, a representative of the men’s families told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent.
• The three other men in the van told a lawyer that Salgado Araujo never veered toward federal agents and that a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle, the Washington Post reports. Attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said he met with the three men individually while they were in detention and they separately gave similar accounts. “All of them reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van,” Balderas-Ibarra told the Post. “They came in and started shooting from the sides.”

While video of some portions of the incident has emerged, none of it captures the shooting itself.

The Houston district attorney, which is investigating the incident, is consulting with local prosecutors in Minneapolis about the challenges of investigating an ICE shooting without cooperation from the federal government, the AP reports.

Trump DOJ Watch

• Chicago: A federal judge in Chicago who hauled a chastened U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutrous into court yesterday concluded that he had violated her order sealing a criminal case when he spoke publicly about it at a Main Justice press conference last week, but she concluded that he did not do so for “any nefarious purpose” and declined to impose sanctions against him.
• D.C.: Even Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who has been unfailingly solicitous of FBI Director Kash Patel until this point, has concerns about Patel’s use of an FBI plane for personal travel and the FBI’s purchase of BMW vehicles. Grassley quietly sent Patel a letter in May inquiring about these issues, MS Now reports — though Grassley was quick to grouch about the reports of his minimal efforts at oversight.

Trump Fires EAC Commissioners

Just Security’s Aaron Blacksberg on the practical impact of President Trump’s unprecedented firing of all the remaining commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission, leaving it commissioner-less.

Tidbit of the Day

President Trump’s recent stock-trading frenzy was triggered by an appeal court’s August reversal of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s $500 million judgment against him. Off the hook for that penalty, Trump quickly began investing the $175 million he had sitting in a Schwab account as collateral for the appeal bond, the WSJ reports: “Within days, the Schwab account was snapping up and selling dozens of stocks as an automated trading strategy put the cash to work.” 

The Emperor’s New Airplane

President Trump is essentially flying naked when he boards his cherished new Qatari-gifted Air Force One because it “lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities,” the NYT reports.

The White House and Air Force are dodging questions about Trump’s push to rush the airplane into service before it was thoroughly retrofitted for the job of protecting the nation’s head of state while he travels.

UPDATE: TPM Journalism Fund Drive

Folks, we’ve gotten off to a rip-roaring start in our annual TPM Journalism Fund drive. It launched Tuesday with a goal of $500,000, and we’ve already crested $200,000 in the first three days and change. Still a ways to go, but a fantastic way to start. Thank you!

The early success was helped by our single biggest contribution ever to the TPM Journalism Fund: $20,000. But the first three days still looked like what we have seen in past drives: broad-based support from readers giving what they can, which ranges from single-digit contributions to the occasional five-digit boost.

The sooner we can hit our mark, the quicker I can stop pitching you. So as the week ends, please consider taking just a moment to pitch in now and support our work. I and the rest of the team could not be more appreciative for your support.

Good Weekend Reads

• TPM’s Josh Marshall: Why the Democratic Party Has No ‘Base’ and Why That Matters
• Off Message’s Brian Beutler: How Democratic voters began to question, and ultimately lost faith in, their party’s establishment: a comprehensive history.

See Ya Monday

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