ICE shooting renews questions over equipping officers with body cameras – spectrumlocalnews.com

ICE shooting renews questions over equipping officers with body cameras  spectrumlocalnews.com

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said every ICE field officer will have a body camera by the end of September. WASHINGTON — Another shooting by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer is raising questions about whether body cameras are available to all the agency’s field officers. According to his attorney, 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was making food deliveries Sunday in Austin when an ICE officer shot and wounded him during a traffic stop. Several media outlets, including NBC News, reported that the ICE officer involved was issued a body camera but was not wearing it. “I think when there is a camera, body cams by police, it makes them act a different way than if there wasn’t, and so by not having the body cam, there’s a lot more ruthlessness and lack of transparency,” said immigration attorney Ruby Powers.

Powers represents Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, the brother of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the Houston father who was shot and killed by ICE during a traffic stop over two months ago in July. That officer involved did not wear a body camera. “Where the agent approached the van and shot from the window, there were very few, if any, direct cameras on that, but if they would have had body cameras, then they would have been able to have video