The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Minneapolis resident and ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by two Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis this month.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the investigation by the FBI on Friday, but said it wasn’t newsworthy.
“This is what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI,” Blanche said, speaking at a news conference announcing the release of more files related to Jeffrey Epstein as ordered by Congress.
“That investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil Rights Division, it will involve those,” he said.
But Blanche also acknowledged that the Department of Justice does not investigate every shooting by a federal agent for potential civil rights violations.
The U.S. Department of Justice notably declined to open a civil rights investigation into the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. Instead, the agency reportedly began investigating the ties Good and her wife had to “activist groups.”
Half a dozen prosecutors then resigned from the Department of Justice, including former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who had been leading prosecution of fraud in state social service programs.
Six more have since resigned and prosecutors in Minneapolis warned earlier this week even more resignations would come over the lack of investigations into the two killings, CBS News reported.
“Cases are handled differently by this department, depending on the circumstances,” Blanche said, when asked about Good.
Blanche would not commit to releasing the names of the officers involved in the shooting or the body camera footage.
The news of a civil rights investigation came on the heels of the FBI saying they would be leading the investigation into Pretti’s killing. Previously, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm was said to be taking the lead — essentially investigating itself since the two officers who killed Pretti worked under DHS.
DHS blocked state investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension — which typically investigates shootings by law enforcement officers — from the scene of Pretti’s killing. The BCA was also shut out of a joint investigation into Good’s killing, hindering local prosecutors from being able to weigh possible criminal charges.
Pretti’s killing has led some Republicans to join Democrats in more forcefully criticizing “Operation Metro Surge,” which has produced a seemingly endless stream of videos showing federal agents brutalizing U.S. citizens and immigrants alike over the past nine weeks.
Noem initially painted Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” as she did Good, but later softened her rhetoric after an apparent divide with Trump.
Trump demoted Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and pulled him out of Minnesota, replacing him with border czar Tom Homan, who tacitly acknowledged, “I’m not here because the federal government has carried out its mission perfectly.”
Trump then sharpened his tone about Pretti in a social media post Friday morning, calling him an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist” following video footage surfacing showing him kicking a federal vehicle and spitting at agents during a previous encounter.
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