Local Prosecutors are demanding federal evidence in two shootings that happened during “Operation Metro Surge."
The Hennepin County attorney’s office has issued formal legal demands for records from the federal government regarding the fatal January 24 shooting death of Alex Pretti, and the shooting of a Venezuelan national on January 14 in Minneapolis.
"We are prepared to take further legal action should the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice fail to meet our deadline and continue to obstruct our investigations," said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
She says while the Department of Justice is currently blocking access to key evidence, including in the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7, investigators are moving forward using witness interviews and community-submitted data.
Moriarty's office has already filed a demand for evidence and other information about last month's shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent. That deadline passed on Tuesday of this week. The Attorney's office has set a March 3 deadline for the newly requested materials.
Cooperation between federal authorities and local investigators has been an on-again, off-again relationship.
On Monday, the head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Drew Evans, says he was suprised to learn that the FBI will not be cooperating with his office in investigating the deaths of Pretti and Rene Good, and the shooting of the Venezualen man.
"Law enforcement serves everybody in the state," Evans told WCCO's Jason DeRusha. "It is not affiliated with any particular political belief or ideology. They need to be there to serve everybody. And when a death occurs in their state and when the government is involved in that death, it is really an expectation of Minnesotans in this state to have that complete investigation."
Evans added the BCA will continue to pursue all legal avenues to gain access to relevant information and evidence.
It was announced last week that federal authorities said they would work with the state in a joint investigation, something that local leaders, and even some Republicans nationally had been calling for from the start.
That includes Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R), who said last week during a hearing that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE must ‘restore trust’ with the public shootings of Good and Pretti.
He’s scheduled a public committee hearing to press the issue publicly.
Complicating things even further, last week federal authorities opened a criminal probe into whether two immigration officers lied under oath about the shooting of the Venezuelan man. The head of ICE, Todd Lyons, told said Friday that his agency had opened a joint probe with the Justice Department after video evidence revealed “sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements.”
The announcement came as a federal judge ordered all charges dropped against Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, who was shot in the leg by an immigration officer, as well as another Venezuelan man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna.