Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and BCA Superintendent Drew Evans filed a federal lawsuit this morning demanding that the DOJ and DHS stop obstructing state investigators and hand over the evidence they need to determine whether the agents who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti broke Minnesota law.
It should not have come to this. But here we are.
Renee Good was a 37-year-old poet, mother of three, and wife. She was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis on January 7. Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA. He was shot and killed on a public street in this city on January 24. In both cases, state investigators showed up to do their jobs. In both cases, federal officials stepped in and shut them out.
When Minnesota investigators arrived at the scene where Alex was killed, a federal agent told them he’d been ordered to keep them out. They went to the Whipple Federal Building and waited for hours.
Eventually, a federal official came out and told them directly: you are not allowed to participate in any part of this investigation. The federal government has never officially disclosed the names of the agents who shot him.
The state submitted formal evidence requests to DOJ in February. DOJ never responded — not to deny them, not to ask for more time. Nothing. More than a dozen prosecutors have resigned over the handling of these cases. An FBI supervisor resigned after being pressured to shut down the civil rights investigation into the agent who shot Renee Good.
Vote Common Good has been on the ground in Minneapolis since the beginning. If you’re as angry about this as I am, please make a contribution right now to help us keep fighting.
This administration’s lawless overreach isn’t confined to Minneapolis.
This week, Trump deployed ICE agents to 14 airports across the country.
On Sunday night at San Francisco International, ICE agents in plain clothes forcefully detained a woman in Terminal 3 while her young daughter watched. The video went viral. The administration deported them both to Guatemala.