Houston leaders on Wednesday said they have received little information from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the fatal shooting of an immigrant Tuesday, while his eldest son publicly praised his father and demanded an investigation. 

“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” Ronaldo Salgado, who works as a teacher, said of his father, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a press conference.

Salgado said his father was a “man of routine” who always began his day before sunrise and left the house around 6 a.m. to his job building homes in North Houston.

But on Tuesday, after picking up three other men, including his brother, for work, Salgado Araujo’s vehicle was stopped by agents in unmarked vehicles. The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents were attempting to stop Salgado Araujo’s vehicle as part of an unspecified “targeted enforcement operation” in Houston’s East End, a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

The agency said Salgado Araujo also ignored verbal commands and tried to run over the ICE agent who shot him. The officer fired in self-defense, the statement said.

Salgado said his father, a Mexican citizen who was in the process of getting a work permit, may have feared that he was about to get robbed.

“One of his worst fears is that someone took away his work tools, because that is how he made his livelihood,” he said.

“Had my father seen an emblem of ICE, or an emblem that says anything about law enforcement agency, my father would have complied,” he added. “He would have not run away, because he feared for his life.”

Local elected leaders echoed demands for an independent investigation into Salgado Araujo’s death.

"What we know is very thin," said Juan Proaño, the CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “We want a full and transparent investigation. Every piece of evidence, body camera footage, dash cam footage, bystander video, dispatch records must all be preserved and released to an independent investigator and to the public."

LULAC is offering a $5,000 reward for information and videos leading to “the arrest, indictment, conviction, or exoneration of any person involved in this potential murder.”

Domingo Garcia, LULAC’s national president, asked the Houston Police Department to investigate, saying he does not trust a federal investigation.

“We don't expect the truth from the Department of Justice or from the FBI,” Garcia said. “We expect a whitewash, that's just what we expect. But let me just be very clear, the only way we hold them accountable is if the citizens and the residents of Houston hold them accountable.”