Minnesota Senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar says she's encouraging federal officials to begin drawing immigration enforcement agents out of Minnesota as quickly as possible.
Klobuchar tells WCCO Radio's Vineeta Sawkar removing border patrol agents, and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, was a start.
"So let me be clear, I'm not a Pollyanna about this, what I'm telling you is they have said that that operation they will start to drawdown to me," Klobuchar explained. "But that just hasn't happened yet. The only thing that's happened that I know of is the border control agents."
Klobuchar says "Operation Metro Surge" has gone way beyond its original intent of getting violent criminals out of Minnesota.
The comments from Senator Klobuchar, who also said "stay tuned" when asked if she would be announcing a run for governor in Minnesota, come as new information about the shooting of 37-year old Alex Pretti were released late on Tuesday.
Two federal officers fired shots during the encounter that killed Pretti, an ICU nurse, over the weekend in Minneapolis. That comes from a Customs and Border Protection official who told Congress in a notice.
The memo says officers tried to take Pretti into custody and he resisted, leading to a struggle, according to a notification to Congress obtained by The Associated Press. During the struggle, a Border Patrol agent yelled, “He’s got a gun!” multiple times, the official said.
A Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer each fired Glock pistols, the notice said.
Investigators from CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted the analysis based on a review of body-worn camera footage and agency documentation, the notice said. The law requires the agency to inform relevant congressional committees about deaths in CBP custody within 72 hours.
CNN has reported Wednesday morning that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said officials are evaluating why Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis “may not have been following” proper protocol before the fatal shooting Pretti.
In a statement to CNN, Miller said the White House had “provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors. We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol."