A remarkable clash was playing out between state and federal authorities on Sunday over the investigation into a fatal shooting by immigration agents in Minneapolis. A judge issued a late-night order barring federal officials from destroying evidence, as Trump administration officials continued to lodge baseless accusations against the victim.
The ruling late on Saturday came hours after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, a nurse at the city’s Veterans Affairs hospital, and refused to allow state investigators access to the scene, despite a search warrant for the public sidewalk procured by the Minnesota department of criminal apprehension.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, said in a statement that Pretti had been killed “in broad daylight in front of all of our eyes” by federal agents. “Both the rule of law and the sense of justice we all carry within us demand a full, fair, and transparent investigation into his death,” he said.
Trump officials continued to label Pretti a domestic terrorist, despite video evidence showing that he never drew his concealed pistol and was restrained and disarmed before agents fired shots into his back and then his body after he slumped to the ground. Gregory Bovino, the commander of President Donald Trump’s Border Patrol operations, said on CNN’s State of the Morning that the agents who opened fire were the "real victims".
The lawsuit filed by local officials on Saturday accused federal officials of blocking state investigators from the scene of the shooting and removing evidence, which resulted in a temporary restraining order from a federal judge.
Federal authorities said the department of homeland security, which includes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Border Patrol, would lead the investigation. But senior homeland security and justice department officials have claimed it was already clear that Pretti was out to “massacre” federal agents.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said video of the shooting raised “serious questions” about the account provided by Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of Trump’s Border Patrol operations.
On CBS’s Face the Nation, O’Hara said that Pretti appeared to be "exercising his First Amendment rights to record law enforcement activity, and also exercising his Second Amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city".
New York Times News Service