See How ICE Failed to Justify Their Actions on Shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis Minn.
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| Federal agents, law enforcement and protesters clashed after an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis on Jan. 14.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times The collapse of the Trump administration’s version of events in the case was only the most recent instance in which officials gave an account of a shooting that was later contradicted. |
New York Times
When an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in the leg last month in Minneapolis, touching off hours of tense protests, the Trump administration rushed to sell a version of events that demonized the wounded man and defended the agent.
About two hours after the gunfire, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman claimed that three people had attacked an agent with a broom and snow shovel. She said the agent “fired a defensive shot to defend his life” as he was “being ambushed.” The next day, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused the men of trying to kill the agent.
But the federal government’s account soon shifted. And by Friday, it had fully unraveled.
When assault charges were filed days after the shooting against Mr. Sosa-Celis and one of the other men, Alfredo A. Aljorna, officials changed their narrative, saying it was not three people who attacked the agent, but two. Several other details revealed in court records also differed from the original account.
Then on Thursday, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota asked a judge to drop the case, saying that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations.” On Friday, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, said two agents had been placed on leave for providing accounts that appeared to conflict with video footage of what happened. Those agents, he said, could eventually face termination and prosecution.
“Lying under oath is a serious federal offense,” Mr. Lyons said in a statement. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is actively investigating these false statements.”
The collapse of the government’s narrative, which came just as the administration was ending its more than two-month surge of immigration agents to Minnesota, was the latest instance of the Department of Homeland Security providing an account of a shooting that later proved questionable or outright wrong. For many, especially those already skeptical of the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, the repeated emergence of evidence that undermines official accounts has cast doubt on almost anything the government says about immigration enforcement.
In Chicago, where a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a woman last year, prosecutors dropped the charges against her after concerns about evidence were raised. The woman, Marimar Martinez, has since sought to clear her name and has pushed back against the Trump administration’s description of her as a domestic terrorist.
And after two fatal shootings by immigration agents in Minneapolis this year, Mr. Trump and his allies rushed to cast the people who were killed, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, as domestic terrorists. Administration officials persisted in those claims even after some of their accounts were contradicted by videos.
Deborah Fleischaker, a former senior ICE official during the Biden administration, described the latest false narrative as “indicative of the Trump administration’s rush to defend ICE officers before they understand the facts.”
“The rush to charge the victim in this case is sadly in line with the administration’s never-back-down, more-is-more ethos,” she said, “and diminishes even further the trust and respect that should or will be granted the government moving forward.”
Brian D. Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Sosa-Celis and Mr. Aljorna, said in a statement that his clients were vindicated by the latest development.
“They are so happy justice is being served by the government’s request to dismiss all charges,” he said, adding that the identity “of the ICE agent should be made public and he should be charged for his crime.”
Judge Paul A. Magnuson granted the prosecutor’s request and dismissed the charges on Friday with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled.
The names of the federal agents who were placed on leave have not been released, and it was not clear whether they had hired lawyers. A leader of the National ICE Officers Association did not respond to a request for comment.
The details of what happened on Jan. 14, when Mr. Sosa-Celis was shot on the North Side of Minneapolis, remain unclear. While federal officials have acknowledged that their initial narrative appears to be false, they have not provided an updated account. The video evidence that Mr. Lyons referenced has not been made public.
For weeks, prosecutors pushed ahead with felony cases against Mr. Sosa-Celis and Mr. Aljorna, both of whom the administration has described as undocumented Venezuelans, and sought to keep them detained ahead of trial. Mr. Sosa-Celis, who was shot in the leg, had injuries that were not life-threatening. They were both arrested, officials have said, after agents used tear gas to force them out of a building.
A third man was arrested after the shooting and was accused by the Department of Homeland Security of attacking the agent. Charges were never filed against that man, Gabriel Hernandez Ledezma, and court records gave no indication that he was involved in any attack. Still, Mr. Hernandez Ledezma, who is Venezuelan, was detained by immigration officials and sent to Texas.
In a petition seeking release from detention, Mr. Hernandez Ledezma’s lawyer wrote that his client believed he was being held out of state because he was “a key witness that undermines the federal government’s narrative of what occurred.”
By Thursday, Daniel N. Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, had agreed that the federal narrative in the criminal case was wrong.
“Accordingly,” Mr. Rosen wrote to the judge, “dismissal with prejudice will serve the interests of justice.”
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