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Minnesota prosecutors announced Monday that they have obtained key evidence in their ongoing investigations into fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during pitched protests against a federal immigration enforcement crackdown in the state earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the cooperation of our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis,\u201d Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We have also obtained some of the physical evidence that was previously withheld, including Renee Good\u2019s car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statements, police body camera video and other evidence had previously been withheld by federal officials in the killings.<\/p>\n
She said state and local investigators now also have in their possession Good\u2019s damaged car.<\/p>\n
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her car while leaving an anti-immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surged through the region.<\/p>\n
Her death and that of Pretti<\/a>, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse shot and killed<\/a> by federal officers just weeks later during a Jan. 24 protest, sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in<\/a> immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence,\u201d Moriarty said.<\/p>\n Investigators are going through all the evidence, including hard drives with statements, hours of video recorded by body-worn cameras and the physical car Good was driving, Moriarty said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need transparency. We need cooperation. Our community needs it,\u201d she said. \u201cOur democracy requires it.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of June, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Moriarty asked a federal judge to push out the deadlines in their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice because they said they were in the midst of recently reinitiated \u201congoing discussions\u201d with the FBI about information sharing.<\/p>\n Those ongoing discussions with the FBI about information sharing are likely to affect Minnesota\u2019s request for summary judgment in the case, Ellison and Moriarty wrote in their motion to the court.<\/p>\n The attorneys representing the federal government signed onto the motion.<\/p>\n Ellison said he remains \u201cdeeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt should never have taken this long for Minnesota law enforcement to gain access to the federal government\u2019s evidence,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cI hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n There have been at least eight deaths since the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign began last year, but nobody has been charged in connection with them.<\/p>\n A Minneapolis resident, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, was also shot and injured in his home while ICE agents were in pursuit of another man.<\/p>\n In May, Christian Castro, an ICE agent, was arrested and charged with assault<\/a> as well as falsely reporting a crime in connection with that Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting.<\/p>\n Prosecutors say Castro, 52, fired through a home\u2019s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.<\/p>\n In April, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., another ICE agent, was charged with pointing his gun<\/a> at a motorist and passenger on a Minneapolis highway. <\/p>\n Prosecutors said at the time it was the first criminal case against a federal officer involved in the Minnesota immigration crackdown. <\/p>\n On Monday, ICE was involved in the fatal shooting in Maine<\/a>, according to state House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat.<\/p>\n Details of what transpired in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland, remain unclear.<\/p>\n Last week, an ICE agent in Houston fatally shot<\/a> a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for decades as the homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site. <\/p>\n The federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has acknowledged officers were looking for someone else<\/a> when they attempted to stop Lorenzo Salgado Araujo\u2019s vehicle. The agency maintains Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, prompting an officer to open fire in self-defense. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n