ICE arrests witness who helped Houston police in active shooting investigation, department says

HOUSTON, Texas — A man was taken by federal immigration agents after reporting a crime that ultimately helped officers find a convicted felon, according to Houston police.

The Houston Police Department said before police even finished their investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had already detained the witness. But the department told 13 they did not contact ICE.

HPD said the witness reported someone was firing a gun outside a Home Depot on Bellaire Boulevard in Alief on Sunday.

The witness called police after seeing a man fire a gun into the air, according to HPD.

Officers said they found the suspect and charged him with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, adding to his extensive criminal history of about a dozen prior arrests. However, the suspect wasn’t the only person taken into custody.

According to the police report, as officers investigated the shooting, the witness who called police was detained by an ICE agent.

The HPD officer wrote he saw “multiple bystanders running away from the parking lot” and the “reportee” was detained.

The witness still helped HPD officers identify the suspect and told them, “I’m sure that’s him. I saw the gun and was afraid,” according to the report.

The HPD officer then wrote, “ICE agent then took my reportee and left the scene.”

“Because this person is a material witness to this crime, we’re actively trying to find them, to interview them again,” said Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare.

Teare said when a witness is taken by ICE, it makes prosecuting a case much more difficult.

“When ICE grabs people, they effectively go into a black hole,” Teare said.

Even if someone isn’t detained, Teare said sometimes a witness is too scared to testify because of their immigration status.

He mentioned an example of an aggravated sexual assault of a child.

“The outcry witness is here unauthorized, and he’s too scared to come to court to testify,” Teare said. “We’re having to either reduce our plea offers or outright dismiss cases against people that we know committed one of the most heinous acts out there.”

Although in this case HPD said it did not call ICE, recent department data shows officers contacted ICE more than 100 times from April through June after encountering people with immigration warrants during a call.

According to the data, 34 of those cases involved someone calling emergency responders for help.

This comes at a time when ICE activity in Houston is under renewed scrutiny following the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in July.

Ultimately, this case and those like it leave DA Teare worried crimes may go unreported.

“We, as the DA’s office and our law enforcement partners, aren’t able to hold violent criminals accountable because the victims and witnesses are either too scared to come forward or are actively being snatched up by ICE,” Teare said.

13 reached out to ICE to ask whether the witness in this case is still in its custody and how the agency ended up detaining him if HPD didn’t contact it. 13 is still waiting to hear back.