The Justice Department said Friday it has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend, a reversal from its handling so far of shootings involving agents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on that day,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Friday. Blanche said FBI investigators would continue to work with the Department of Homeland Security, which has been conducting its own “use of force” investigation into whether its agents followed protocol during the incident.
He later sought to downplay the significance of the Justice Department opening a new probe, saying he did not want to “overstate what’s happening.”
“This is what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI when there are circumstances like what we saw last Saturday,” Blanche said. “And that investigation — to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil Rights Division, it will involve those.”
Still, Blanche’s comments marked an about-face from the Trump administration’s previous rhetoric surrounding Pretti’s death. Initially, administration officials said no civil rights investigation was warranted, a position that sparked national outrage and calls — including from some Republican lawmakers — for an independent probe.
Blanche’s remarks came just hours after President Donald Trump maligned Pretti and defended federal officers. In a social media post, he labeled Pretti “an agitator, and perhaps, insurrectionist.”
After federal officers shot Pretti on Jan. 24, administration officials said the Department of Homeland Security would lead an internal use of force review with assistance from the FBI. The Washington Post has reported that the Justice Department’s civil rights investigators, who would typically be involved in an inquiry into an officer-involved shooting, were not activated in the days immediately after Pretti’s death.
The first signs in a shift in the administration’s strategy emerged Thursday evening, when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem told Fox News host Sean Hannity that the FBI was now leading the investigation.
“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information they need to bring that to conclusion and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said.
A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reasons behind the decision to let the FBI now take lead. Steve Schleicher, an attorney for Pretti’s family, said the family’s focus was now “on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.”
Noem, in her interview with Hannity, distanced herself from earlier statements she made in the hours after Pretti’s death, in which she called him a “domestic terrorist” and accused him of brandishing a gun and seeking to “massacre” officers.
A Post analysis of videos that captured the incident from several angles showed Pretti stopping to help a woman who had been knocked down by Border Patrol agents. Federal agents then wrestled him to the ground. An agent had secured a handgun Pretti had in his possession before two officers shot him multiple times, administration officials said in a court filing earlier this week.
In their statements in the days after the shooting, “we were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground,” Noem told Hannity on Thursday.
Typically, a federal investigation into an officer-involved shooting would involve FBI agents as well as criminal and civil rights prosecutors. Any federal use-of-force investigation into an officer’s conduct is considered a civil rights investigation because the provision under which officers can be charged is a civil rights statute that covers deprivation of a person’s rights “under color of law.”
Federal officers and agents in the Minneapolis area have been involved in three shootings in the span of a few weeks. Minneapolis resident Renée Good, 37, was shot and killed in her SUV on Jan. 7, and Blanche previously stated he saw no basis to open a civil rights investigation into her death.
The Post reported that the FBI briefly opened a civil rights investigation into the Good shooting before changing course under direction to investigate Good’s partner instead.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota — who typically would be involved in such a criminal investigation — have grown increasingly frustrated with the department’s handling of both investigations. The Post reported Thursday that many are on the verge of resigning from the office because of the Good and Pretti cases.
Blanche on Friday sidestepped reporters’ questions on whether the Justice Department had also now opened a civil rights probe into the Good shooting or was considering doing so.
“There are thousands, unfortunately, of law enforcement events every year where somebody is shot,” he said. “The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice does not investigate every one of those shootings. There has to be circumstances or facts that warrant an investigation.”
Law enforcement officers are rarely charged for using lethal force, in part because the law provides significant leeway for officers to decide when use of force is needed. Law enforcement experts have said, however, that an accurate conclusion can only be reached if officials examine all relevant state and federal laws and their application to the facts in the case.
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