Substance found in Lorenzo Salgado's van was not drugs, Harris County DA Sean Teare's office confirms

A substance found in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo's van last week was not methamphetamine, multiple officials said Friday afternoon.

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia said she could confirm "the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado’s van was not a narcotic or any other illicit substance" in a statement posted on social media.

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"As his family has said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer," Garcia wrote. "The attempt to cast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado’s name has failed."

A spokesperson for Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare's office said it had been notified that the contents of the plastic baggies were negative for narcotics or other illicit drugs. The spokesperson declined to comment on other details about the findings, including what agency notified Teare's office.

A lawyer for Victor Salgado Araujo, a witness to the shooting and Lorenzo Salgado's brother, said that the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted testing on the substance and that official results were expected to be announced Monday.

"The preliminary report is already clear: the substance was not a controlled substance," attorney Ruby Powers said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said she had no information to provide in connection to the warrant.

Salgado on July 7 was shot and killed by an ICE agent at the end of a pursuit through Houston's East End neighborhood. The Department of Homeland Security said that Salgado attempted to "weaponize" his vehicle and ram agents who were attempting to arrest him in a statement after his death. Salgado's family has questioned the description of events and called for an independent investigation into the shooting.

Those calls have been echoed in weeks of protests around the city.

The Justice Department last week unsealed a search warrant that showed FBI agents sought a judge's permission to seize and test small plastic baggies that were sitting on the dashboard and floor of Salgado's Ford Transit van. An agent wrote in a search warrant that the baggies appeared to contain a white, crystal-like substance that was consistent with methamphetamine.

The warrant was unusual for its public release. Most warrants filed in the Southern District of Texas remain sealed during ongoing investigations where there has been no indictment.

Critics of the Justice Department claimed the release was an attempt to smear Salgado's name in the aftermath of the shooting. The day after the warrant became public his family said they believed the substance in the baggies was salt that was used in homemade electrolyte mixture.

"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," Powers said. "Lorenzo was shot, and no lab report answers for that."

Teare had also said he doubted the substance was drugs and publicly questioned the insinuations in the warrant, even before test results were available.

"It is extraordinarily plausible that those baggies contained exactly what the family says they contain, which is a homemade electrolyte mix for people that work out in the Texas heat in the middle of the summer," Teare said during a forum held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Houston on Friday afternoon.

Last week, Teare said Salgado's wife made the packets every morning for his construction crew. They would use the mixture at lunch, he said.

During Friday's hearing, Salgado's son called the idea he had drugs with him "absurd." Salgado had lived in Houston for more than 30 years and had no criminal record.