Trump Administration Finally Hands Over Evidence From Minnesota ICE Shootings

Minnesota prosecutors say they have obtained “hard drives of previously withheld evidence” from the federal government in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis by federal immigration officials.

Federal officials, conducting their own investigation into the shootings at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, had not previously shared evidence they obtained, state prosecutors said. The new materials will be “immediately” analyzed, they said.

“As I’ve said many times over the last six months, our office has not prejudged any of these incidents,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a news release. “We need transparency. We need cooperation. Our community needs it. Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s family deserve it. Julio Sosa-Celis deserves it. Our democracy requires it.”

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension now has access to Good’s car and other physical evidence and has, in return, shared files on the cases with the federal prosecutors.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison criticized the federal government for withholding certain evidence from state officials about the shootings earlier this year amid an escalation of immigration enforcement officers in the Twin Cities.

“I remain deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators, and I hope this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government,” Ellison said.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) celebrated the release of evidence but acknowledged there is still work to be done to get “true justice.”

“Minnesotans’ trust has been fundamentally broken,” Smith wrote on X. “There’s a long way to go before we get true justice for ICE killing two of our neighbors.”

The new evidence comes the same day another unidentified man was shot and killed in an ICE-involved incident in Maine and less than a week after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, was fatally shot in Houston.

Federal immigration officers shot and killed Good, a mother of three, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. The Department of Homeland Security accused Good of “domestic terrorism” and said she “weaponized her vehicle against law enforcement,” an account witnesses refute, citing videos of the shooting.

A few weeks later on Jan. 24, federal agents shot Pretti, a nurse, in Minneapolis while he was protesting an immigration operation nearby. Pretti had a handgun on his person and DHS said he “violently resisted” when officers attempted to take his weapon. Pretti did not display the gun.

Immigration officials shot Sosa-Celis in the leg through a door while they were pursuing another man. An ICE agent alleged that Sosa-Celis and another man beat him, and he fired his weapon out of self defense. State prosecutors later charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime after surveillance footage revealed conflicting details in the case.

The shootings came after President Donald Trump sent thousands of federal agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul during Operation Metro Surge as part of the wider administration effort to deport immigrants without legal status.

The deaths of Good and Pretti prompted large protests in the region and ultimately an end to the large-scale enforcement action. State prosecutors have been looking into the shootings to see if charges are warranted against the agents.