State and county officials in Minnesota sued the federal government Tuesday for allegedly impeding the state’s investigation into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — and the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis — by federal agents.
Top state authorities including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty claimed the Trump administration has withheld evidence from state authorities in a federal complaint filed with the U.S. district court in Washington.
“At stake is not only Plantiffs’ access to evidence central to these shootings but also a fundamental principle of our constitutional system: that the States retain the sovereign authority—and responsibility—to investigate crimes committed within their borders,” the lawsuit reads.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and now-ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are both listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
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Federal agents shot and killed Good and Pretti, both U.S. citizens, in January during the administration’s immigration enforcement operation surge in the state. Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg in January by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The national outcry surrounding their deaths precipitated a series of changes to the administration’s approach in Minnesota; Trump removed border patrol chief Greg Bovino from the state, and then ultimately reduced the number of federal agents on the ground, announcing the end of Operation Metro Surge in February.
But the state’s calls to be involved in the federal investigations into the shootings have gone unanswered. The Trump administration said it was taking over the probes and opening a federal civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death.
State officials, who are investigating all three shootings, claim the federal government is ignoring “evidence suggesting the shooting may have violated federal law,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also details the ways that the federal government did not cooperate with local authorities in the aftermath of Good’s and Pretti’s deaths.
“The longstanding practice of cooperation and evidence-sharing between federal and Minnesota law enforcement authorities broke down during DHS’s Operation Metro Surge,” the lawsuit says.
DHS and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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