A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order brought by Attorney General Keith Ellison against the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies, preventing them from altering or destroying evidence related to the fatal shooting Saturday of Alex Pretti by DHS agents in Minneapolis.
U.S. District Court Judge Eric C. Tostrud granted the order late Saturday filed by Ellison on behalf of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Minneapolis police had called for the state BCA to investigate the shooting and the BCA says it obtained a search warrant for the scene but its investigative team was blocked by federal agents from accessing the area.
Defendants named in the order include the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. Border Control and their leadership, as well as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel.
Also named is David Easterwood, the acting director of the St. Paul Field Office for ICE and a pastor at Cities Church in St. Paul, the church that protesters interrupted Jan. 18. Three alleged leaders of that protest were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiring to interfere with the congregation’s “free exercise of religion.”
Judge’s order
The defendants, including their employees, agents and anyone “acting in concert with them” are prohibited from destroying or altering evidence related to the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. That includes evidence that the defendants, and those working for them, removed from the scene or have taken into their exclusive custody.
A memorandum in support of the motion argued that “plaintiffs’ irreparable harm is so weighty that any harm to the federal government does not even budge the scales.”
A hearing will be held Monday at the Warren E. Burger Federal Building on any objections the defendants may have to the order and whether it should remain in effect. Tostrud was nominated to his seat by President Donald Trump in 2018.
Pretti, a Minneapolis resident, was shot and killed by federal agents Saturday morning on Nicollet Avenue near 26th Street. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security said Pretti was shot after he approached Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. In bystander videos of the shooting, Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand but none appears to show him with a visible weapon.
Family members of Pretti said he had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Pretti’s family said in a statement Saturday.
Local investigators blocked
Police received a report at 9:03 a.m. of a shooting involving federal law enforcement, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference Saturday.
O’Hara called for the state BCA to respond and conduct an investigation of the shooting. The BCA obtained a search warrant for the scene, but their investigative team was blocked by Homeland Security agents from accessing the area upon arrival, according to BCA Superintendent Drew Evans.
The FBI conducted a “crime scene evaluation” and, when they left, the BCA attempted “to move in to do our own scene investigation,” Evans said Saturday, but local and state police “were unable to hold that scene and it got overrun with protesters in the area and we were not able to re-examine that scene.”
O’Hara, in a broadcast interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday, said the BCA has since returned to the scene but not before it was contaminated.
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“So, unfortunately, we don’t have any official information from federal law enforcement about what has happened. Even when our officers initially responded to the scene, our watch commander was not given even the most basic information that is typical in a law enforcement involved shooting, just to ensure that there is potentially no other victims,” O’Hara said.
O’Hara said the BCA now is canvassing for additional witnesses and evidence at the scene.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has asked for video and other evidence; a link to submit it is available at hennepinattorney.org
Ellison said in a statement Sunday that Pretti was killed “in broad daylight in front of all of our eyes.”
“Both the rule of law and the sense of justice we all carry within us demand a full, fair, and transparent investigation into his death,” Ellison said.
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