ICE officer charged over shooting of Venezuelan man in Minnesota

A Minnesota prosecutor on Monday announced charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s crackdown.

The officer, Christian Castro, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the 14 January shooting of Julio César Sosa-Celis, Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty said at a news conference. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

“There’s no modern precedent for what happened to the people here in Minnesota,” Moriarty said of what transpired during the Minnesota immigration crackdown. “So it requires a lot of us to dig in and look at ways to hold people accountable that we probably never thought we would be looking at in our careers.”

A federal officer shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after he and another officer chased a different man to the apartment duplex where the man and Sosa-Celis lived. Moriarty said Sosa-Celis and the other man were legally in the US.

Julio César Sosa-Celis. Photograph: DHS

Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the incident.

But a federal judge later dismissed the charges, and federal officials opened an investigation into whether two immigration officers lied under oath about what happened.

The city of Minneapolis in April released video of the incident captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera. It undermined ICE’s initial account of the confrontation.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and justice department officials did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The DHS previously said that lying under oath was a “serious federal offense” and that making false statements could result in an officer being fired or prosecuted.

Donald Trump’s administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St Paul area as part of the president’s national deportation campaign. The homeland security department, which oversees ICE, called Operation Metro Surge its largest immigration enforcement operation ever and deemed it a success.

But tensions mounted during the weeks-long campaign and the killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers provoked mass unrest as well as questions about officers’ conduct.

Hennepin county, which includes Minneapolis, has been conducting investigations into multiple incidents and filed charges in April against an ICE agent for alleged actions while on duty.

Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have since clashed over which has the authority to investigate and prosecute officers for conduct while on duty. The Trump administration has suggested that Minnesota officials do not have jurisdiction.

State officials have said they do not trust the federal government to investigate itself or hold officers accountable.

Hennepin county continues to investigate Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the administration in March over access to evidence in the two cases, as well as in the case involving Sosa-Celis.

Although Moriarty has not charged anyone in either killing, she has said she is confident her office’s investigations will bring transparency, even if not criminal prosecution.