Minnesota state and county officials sue government over Renee Good, Alex Pretti investigations
Minnesota state and county officials sued the federal government Tuesday, alleging they are being blocked from investigating the shootings of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis by federal agents.
In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans alleged that the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have blocked state investigators from accessing the evidence they need in order to investigate the three shootings.
The lawsuit names the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who presided over the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year.
Spokespeople for DHS and the Justice Department could not be immediately reached for comment.
Good and Pretti were both fatally shot by federal agents employed by DHS earlier this year as part of an immigration operation known as Operation Metro Surge.
When the FBI first started to investigate the shooting of Good, the bureau initially agreed to share evidence and cooperate with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as part of its parallel investigation into whether her killing was legally justified.
In an abrupt shift from historical practice, however, the FBI reversed course the same day — blocking BCA investigators from sitting in on key witness interviews or accessing evidence collected at the scene.
The probe was later shut down, and multiple federal prosecutors resigned in protest, after they were pressured to cease investigating Good’s death as a civil rights case and were ordered to investigate Good’s wife and treat it like a case of an assault on a federal officer, CBS News previously reported.
To this day, state and county officials alleged in the lawsuit, Good’s car is sitting in shrink wrap inside an FBI storage facility in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and has “never been properly examined or processed.”
“The BCA has repeatedly asked the FBI to provide them with Ms. Good’s car or to allow the BCA to execute their search warrant on the car. FBI officials have either refused or not responded to these requests,” the lawsuit says, adding that the FBI recently informed the office that all of the evidence will only be turned over to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
