Evidence Contradicts Trump Immigration Officials’ Accounts Of Violent Encounters | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s prime immigration officers have repeatedly made statements after violent encounters involving federal brokers – together with two deadly shootings of U.S. residents in Minneapolis this month – that have been later contradicted by proof, a Reuters evaluation discovered.

Trump officers shortly painted the 2 lately shot useless – Renee Good and Alex Pretti – as aggressors and mentioned the shootings have been justified. But video and different proof quickly emerged that contrasted sharply with these accounts, fueling questions in regards to the credibility of federal officers and doubts about their willingness to completely examine these and different incidents.

The Reuters evaluation included these two incidents and 4 others in latest months that, collectively, present a sample through which officers rushed to defend immigration officers with out ready for key info to emerge – in what former immigration officers referred to as a transparent break with previous apply for federal businesses in such conditions.

These preliminary representations have been challenged by video footage or different proof, generally in court docket. In one non-lethal capturing in Minnesota, court docket paperwork emerged exhibiting the incident started with a case of mistaken identification. A dying in a detention middle that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security described as an tried suicide was later dominated a murder by a county health worker.

“They are trying to control a narrative from the very start, and they don’t seem to care when they’re proven wrong,” mentioned David Lapan, who was the DHS press secretary in 2017, throughout Trump’s first administration.

In response to a Reuters request for remark, DHS pointed to earlier statements in regards to the incidents involving their officers, stressing the necessity for officer security as they perform Trump’s crackdown.

“We have seen a highly coordinated campaign of violence against our law enforcement,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin mentioned, including that the division goals to “give swift, accurate information to the American people.”

Here is a take a look at six incidents in Minneapolis, Chicago and Texas:

After Pretti, 37, was shot and killed throughout an encounter with U.S. Border Patrol brokers in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release noting that Pretti was carrying a firearm however didn’t say that it remained holstered. The assertion mentioned the encounter “looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

DHS mentioned Pretti “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” in a publish on the social community X, sharing a photograph of the alleged weapon.

“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted,” DHS mentioned.

White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda, mentioned on X that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin.”

Video of the encounter verified by Reuters confirmed Pretti holding a cellular phone and never a gun as he was wrestled to the bottom by the brokers. Video proof additionally confirmed that an officer eliminated Pretti’s gun from his physique shortly earlier than the primary photographs have been fired. He had a authorized allow to hold the weapon.

In response to a Reuters request for touch upon Monday, DHS mentioned in a press release that Pretti “committed a federal crime while armed as he obstructed an active law enforcement operation” and that the scenario was “evolving.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned throughout a briefing on Monday that Trump “wants to let the investigation continue and let the facts lead.”

Homeland Security described Good, the 37-year-old girl shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on January 7, as a “violent rioter” who had “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them – an act of domestic terrorism.” It mentioned the officer who killed her “saved his own life and that of his fellow officers.”

Trump mentioned Good “ran over the ICE officer,” who he mentioned shot her in self-defense.

Videos of the capturing taken from a number of vantage factors – together with cellular phone video recorded by the officer who shot Good – conflicted with these claims.

The movies present Good in her automobile as brokers rushed up towards her as her automobile partly blocked the road. One of the brokers, Jonathan Ross, positioned himself close to the entrance of her automobile; one other was standing by the driver-side window. The movies present the automobile transferring ahead, its wheels turned away from Ross, who drew his weapon and fired three photographs at Good as her automobile went previous, killing her.

Video reviewed by Reuters appeared to point out Ross and the automobile making contact, however Reuters couldn’t decide whether or not Ross touched the automobile or if it struck him.

On January 15, DHS mentioned officers “were conducting a targeted traffic stop” in Minneapolis for Venezuelan immigrant Julio Sosa-Celis when he sped away, crashed his automobile and fled on foot to an residence constructing.

DHS mentioned on the time that Sosa-Celis and two different males hit an ICE officer who pursued him with a snow shovel and broom deal with, prompting the capturing.

Court paperwork unsealed final week advised a unique story.

An FBI affidavit mentioned the ICE officers had scanned a license plate registered with a unique individual suspected of an immigration violation, main them to chase the fallacious individual earlier than the alleged assault and capturing.

The affidavit mentioned one other man was driving the automobile and was the only occupant – not Sosa-Celis. The automobile’s precise driver – one other Venezuelan immigrant – crashed and fled to an residence constructing the place Sosa-Celis was current, it mentioned.

At the residence constructing, an ICE officer making an attempt to detain the automobile’s driver was struck by him and Sosa-Celis with a brush – and a 3rd man with a shovel – earlier than the officer fired his weapon, the FBI affidavit mentioned.

While DHS mentioned initially that the officer “fired a defensive shot to defend his life” in the course of the ambush, the FBI affidavit mentioned the alleged attackers dropped the broom and shovel once they noticed the officer draw his gun and have been fleeing towards the residence as he fired.

Robin Wolpert, an legal professional representing Sosa-Celis, mentioned he would plead not responsible if indicted.

Wolpert mentioned the affidavit established that the ICE officer shot Sosa-Celis from 10 ft away as he was fleeing, which confirmed the officer “was not in immediate danger.”

DHS didn’t tackle the FBI affidavit with the totally different account of the incident when requested for remark.

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement introduced the dying of Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos in a Texas detention middle on January 3, it mentioned he skilled “medical distress” and that the incident was being investigated.

A January 15 report within the Washington Post mentioned the El Paso County health worker’s workplace was prone to rule it a murder, with the preliminary explanation for dying “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression.” The Post cited a witness who mentioned guards have been choking Lunas, who mentioned he couldn’t breathe, particulars that have been absent from ICE’s assertion.

DHS issued a brand new assertion after the article was printed that mentioned Lunas tried to commit suicide after which resisted safety officers and died.

The health worker launched a report final week that discovered the dying was a murder attributable to asphyxia from neck and torso compression, in response to the Post.

The dying was one in every of six deaths in ICE detention in January, an unusually excessive quantity.

A federal decide wrote in a November opinion proscribing immigration brokers’ use of drive in Chicago that the federal government’s “widespread misrepresentations call into question everything that defendants say they are doing in their characterization” of the crackdown.

In one occasion, Homeland Security posted on X that “rioters surrounded law enforcement” and “attacked” a van carrying detainees, an encounter that escalated till somebody threw a rock at Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino, hitting him within the head. Five days later, Bovino mentioned in court docket that the rock had not hit him when he first deployed tear fuel.

“It did almost hit me,” he mentioned.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis mentioned Bovino “lied multiple times” about why he wanted to throw a tear fuel canister at protesters.

Neither DHS nor Bovino responded to requests for remark in regards to the incident and the feedback by Ellis.

In the identical case, Ellis additionally questioned authorities’ claims that they wanted to make use of tear fuel in order that they may go away the scene of one other operation in October, saying the brokers themselves had extended the encounter by their actions.

“Every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything” the federal government mentioned, Ellis wrote.

Homeland Security mentioned in a press release after the ruling that officers have been going through “rioters, gangbangers and terrorists” and that they’d proven “incredible restraint in exhausting all options before force is escalated.”

On October 4, Homeland Security mentioned that a number of drivers “rammed” legislation enforcement officers in Broadview, a Chicago suburb the place an immigration detention middle has been the positioning of clashes between protesters and immigration brokers.

DHS mentioned one of many drivers, a lady, was “armed with a semi-automatic weapon” and that legislation enforcement was “forced to deploy their weapons and fired defensive shots at an armed U.S. citizen.”

The girl, U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez, was shot by an agent 5 instances. She survived and was indicted on expenses of impeding a federal officer with a lethal weapon.

The officer later boasted of his marksmanship in textual content messages shared in court docket.

Martinez’s lawyer, Christopher Parente, advised the court docket that footage from one of many brokers’ bodycams contradicted the DHS account. Martinez, 30, mentioned that one of many brokers truly rammed her automobile along with his.

Parente advised Reuters Martinez left her gun in her purse on the passenger seat and by no means brandished it. DHS was fallacious in regards to the location of the incident – it occurred within the Chicago neighborhood of Brighton Park, not Broadview.

On November 20, authorities prosecutors requested the court docket to dismiss the case towards Martinez, saying it was “reviewing new facts and information” from the months-long operation.

DHS referred any questions on federal expenses to the Justice Department, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

(Reporting by Renee Hickman in Chicago; Ted Hesson and Brad Heath in Washington; and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Craig Timberg and Deepa Babington)