Since the U.S. Border Patrol fatally shot a protester in Minneapolis on Saturday, the federal agencies that would typically be involved in investigating an officer-involved shooting have been on the sidelines.
Federal law enforcement leaders in Minnesota haven’t made public statements or appearances even as the fatal shooting, the second by immigration officers in Minneapolis this month, has drawn increasing criticism from elected officials, including several prominent Republicans.
FBI agents and prosecutors in the state are confused about what — if anything — their involvement will be in the investigation, according to multiple people familiar with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation.
In the apparent absence so far of the Justice Department, Minnesota authorities have vowed to pursue an investigation under state laws into the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse. That has set up a potential legal clash between state and federal authorities. Already, the state has sued the federal government, successfully asking a judge over the weekend to ensure that federal law enforcement officials do not destroy evidence.
The Justice Department’s apparent back seat in the investigation contrasts with how the agency has frequently handled similar officer-involved fatal shootings. Typically, federal investigators would take the lead, deploying FBI agents and Civil Rights Division prosecutors — the department’s experts in investigating use-of-force cases.
That has not occurred in this case, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions that have not been made public.
“This is extremely out of the norm,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “Typically, whether or not a shooting is ultimately found to be justified, these types of shootings are taken very seriously.”
Federal authorities’ approach to the shooting, which has been widely condemned by Democrats, has also drawn criticism from a growing number of Republican senators, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who both made statements Sunday calling for a thorough probe into Pretti’s slaying. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Curtis of Utah and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska have also raised questions about the incident.
A full investigation is “the basic standard that law enforcement and the American people expect following any officer-involved shooting,” Tillis said on X.
“For this specific incident, that requires cooperation and transparency between federal, state, and local law enforcement,” he added. “Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.”
Rather than the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, which the Border Patrol is part of, has taken the lead in the investigation, with the FBI assisting, FBI Director Kash Patel said.
According to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, the DHS internal probe is in part examining whether Border Patrol agents adhered to protocol when Pretti was shot. Homeland Security doesn’t have independent authority to prosecute crimes. But if its examination finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing, DHS officials could refer the investigation to the Justice Department, the law enforcement official said.
Justice Department officials have said in recent weeks that they only investigate police officers under the civil rights laws involving excessive force if they believe such a probe is warranted. Recent shootings by immigration officers do not require federal criminal investigations, they have said.
Legal experts, however, have noted that while the threshold to charge a police officer is high, the only way to determine if a prosecution is warranted is to conduct a thorough investigation.
Patel said in an interview with Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that he trusted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and her agency to “do the right thing.”
“I don’t want to comment on their ongoing investigation,” he said.
In the shooting on Saturday, federal agents wrestled Pretti to the ground and took a handgun he had on him moments before he was shot multiple times, according to a Washington Post analysis of videos that captured the incident from several angles.
It is not clear from the video whether all of the agents realized Pretti had been disarmed. Local officials have said Pretti had a permit to carry the weapon, and Minnesota law allows the open carrying of firearms.
“I think that reasonable people watching the video could conclude that he had a gun and a holster, that it was taken off of him in plain view on the video, and that after that, he was shot,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said in an interview Sunday.
Murkowski, in her statement, said “lawfully carrying a firearm does not justify federal agents killing an American — especially, as video footage appears to show, after the victim had been disarmed.”
Justice Department officials, meanwhile, sought to shift blame for the shooting onto state and local authorities, who they assert have egged on protesters.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared on “Meet the Press” on Sunday and said the problem was that local police officers were not assisting federal law enforcement in the state.
“I’m very confused why the conversation is about what you’re talking about instead of focusing on what really matters, which is why in one city, in one place we have these problems,” Blanche said.
Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, said at a news conference Sunday that the agents involved in Pretti’s shooting had not been placed on leave, but had been moved out of the Minneapolis area for their safety.
He said that moments before Pretti’s death, the agents had been seeking to detain an Ecuadorian migrant with a criminal record that included domestic assault and disorderly conduct. The Minnesota Department of Corrections, however, disputed those claims in a statement, saying that the man had never been in custody and that his criminal history consisted of only a misdemeanor traffic offense from more than a decade ago.
Bovino said Homeland Security’s investigation would focus on how many shots were fired and where weapons were located. He sidestepped questions about the department’s earlier claim that agents had seen Pretti brandishing the gun.
“What I do know is that this individual was on that scene, several minutes before that shooting, interfering with a lawful, legal, ethical law enforcement operation,” he said.
The deployment of thousands of federal and immigration agents to the Twin Cities has transformed the region into a center of resistance to the administration’s deportation policies.
Those protests mounted after Jan. 7, when an Immigration Customs and Enforcement officer shot Renée Good while she was in her car. Good and her partner, who was outside the car at the time of the shooting, had been protesting the immigration crackdown.
The FBI briefly opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Good, but closed it and instead focused on investigating Good’s partner and protesters, The Post reported last week. The handling of that investigation prompted about a half-dozen experienced federal prosecutors to leave the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota. The FBI agent who initially opened the investigation resigned, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.
Since then, the department has focused its resources on investigating state and local leaders and arresting demonstrators, including protesters who interrupted a Jan. 18 church service in St. Paul.
State and local officials have vowed to conduct their own investigation of both the Good and Pretti shootings, but said they had been stymied by federal agents denying them access to the scene.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said his agency took the unusual step Saturday of obtaining a search warrant from a state court to access the shooting scene after initial efforts to respond were rebuffed. Federal agents ignored the warrant and continued to deny access to state investigators, he said.
“In my 20-plus years at the BCA, prior to 2026, I had never encountered a situation in which federal authorities blocked BCA access to an incident where there is concurrent federal and state jurisdiction,” he wrote in a declaration filed in federal court Saturday night. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty took to social media, urging anyone to submit footage they had filmed at the scene.
Amy Sweasy, a University of Minnesota law professor and former assistant prosecutor in the Hennepin County attorney’s office, described those events as extraordinary — especially in a city that has recently seen a number of high-profile, state-led excessive-force prosecutions, including the convictions of four officers involved in the 2020 death of George Floyd.
“This was already a community that deeply understands these issues and worked really hard to get to that place,” Sweasy said. “To see that getting the stiff-arm from the federal government is just so demoralizing for people here.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told The Post in an interview that by Sunday morning, local investigators had gained access to the scene.
“They’ve been canvassing for evidence, canvassing for witnesses, canvassing for video, all of the things you would typically do to follow up in an investigation,” O’Hara said. “The scene had become contaminated by the time the federal law enforcement agents had left.”
If state authorities determine the shooting was unlawful, they could seek to prosecute agents involved. But any attempt to do so would face stiff legal hurdles.
Any agent charged with state crimes would probably seek to move the case to federal court and claim immunity from prosecution under a constitutional doctrine that gives federal law supremacy over state and local statutes.
Under the federal standard, officers are shielded from prosecution when their actions in the line of duty are deemed to have been “necessary and proper” in fulfilling their duties.
Judges making that analysis typically look at whether the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable given the facts of the case. Those questions could mire any effort to prosecute in litigation for years.
“In this case, you could say, ‘Well, they clearly are on the job. But are they doing what is necessary and proper to do their job?’” said Ellison, the state attorney general.
“Now, if you believe that the individual, Mr. Pretti, had been disarmed, was not posing any threat and was shot to death, it’s not necessary and proper to shoot someone to death who is not posing as a threat to you,” he added. “So in that case, a judge may simply let it go before a jury, and the jury can sort out the defenses.”
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Karen Tumulty and Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.
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