Three men who witnessed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s killing by federal immigration officers in Houston disputed the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the shooting and said the victim never attempted to run over a federal agent.

The men, who were inside the vehicle, were arrested during the Tuesday encounter and spoke from immigration detention with their lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra. They said that Mr. Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who was driving to work at a construction site, did not use his vehicle as a weapon or attempt to run over the immigration officers who opened fire.

Soon after the shooting, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, David Venturella, released a statement saying that Mr. Araujo had tried to run down the officer. No evidence was provided to support that account. ICE agents stopped the vehicle around 6:50 a.m. and tried to arrest the driver, according to Mr. Venturella.

Mr. Araujo was shot in the abdomen and taken to a hospital, where he died.

“After speaking with these three men that were in the vehicle with Lorenzo, I have no doubt that what these ICE agents are saying is completely false,” Mr. Balderas-Ibarra said in a video posted on Instagram. “At no point did they ever use the van to ram into the ICE agents and at no point were these ICE agents’ lives ever in any danger.”

The account of the witnesses was first reported by The Washington Post.

In recent months, video evidence has disproved several federal law enforcement accounts of shootings by immigration agents.

In the Houston killing, surveillance videos broadcast on local television show ICE cars tailing the white van and appearing to cut it off. Others appear to show immigration agents hovering over a man holding his abdomen. More images show another man on the ground, his hands behind his back.

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office is leading an investigation into the shooting. The F.B.I.’s Houston office is also looking into the case, primarily as an assault on a federal officer.

Mr. Araujo’s family has called for an independent investigation into his death, which was ruled a homicide by the Harris County Medical Examiner.

The agents who killed Mr. Araujo had been searching for a different undocumented immigrant when they killed Mr. Araujo.

Mr. Araujo has lived in the United States without authorization for 35 years. He was a husband, father of three children and a business owner. According to his sons, he was in the process of obtaining a work permit.

“He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” his son, Ronaldo Salgado, said at a Wednesday news briefing. “That’s how I want the world to know my father: not as someone who got shot and killed, but as a family man, a man who understood that good things come to those who put in hard work.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.