Second witness to Houston ICE shooting ordered to be released from custody, court records show

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A federal judge has ordered that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security release from custody the second of three witnesses to the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, court records show.

In court documents filed Monday, Daniel Tirado Pantoja must be released from custody within 48 hours of the order. According to the order, authorities must release Pantoja in a public space in the Southern District of Texas, and his lawyers must be given three hours' notice of his release.

This marks the second witness to the deadly shooting in Houston's East End ordered to be released by a federal judge. In July, Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was released from ICE detention after a federal judge's order. Both Pantoja and Rojas Pliego were passengers in Salgado Araujo's van when ICE officers began following the vehicle before shooting and killing him.

The officers who stopped the men had no body cameras or dashcams, making the three men inside the van the only known witnesses to the shooting.

The third witness, Salgado Araujo's brother, Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, is still detained. Similar to Pantoja and Rojas Pliego, Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo has filed a petition to be released from immigration detention.