"She needs to be fired, resign, or she will be impeached."
By Julia Conley
President Donald Trump offered a one-word answer—“No”—when asked Tuesday if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will resign following her decision to smear Alex Pretti as a violent domestic terrorist immediately after he was gunned down by border security agents on a Minneapolis street, but Democrats in Congress noted that many in the Republican Party have not appeared so confident regarding Noem’s conduct following the killing.
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee emphasized that since “Operation Metro Surge” in the Minneapolis area led to the killing of a second US citizen by Border Patrol agents on Saturday, and Noem accused Pretti of approaching officers with a gun and resorting to violence despite the fact that footage from multiple camera angles showed nothing of the sort, “she has been rebuked by Republicans in Congress, by her own senior staffers, and even the president.”
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said Noem’s comments “came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence,” while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called for Noem and the heads of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration agencies to testify before Congress.
Former DHS general counsel John Mitnick, an architect of the agency, said he was “enraged and embarrassed by DHS’s lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty” and demanded Trump’s impeachment, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted on Monday to distance the administration from Noem’s response to the killing.
The Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee posted MS NOW‘s fact-check of Noem’s comments directly after Pretti was killed, along with their demand: “She lied about Alex Pretti... She needs to be fired, resign, or she will be impeached.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) released a statement outlining why—regardless of how—Noem must leave her position leading DHS.
“Taxpayer dollars are being weaponized by the Trump administration to kill American citizens, brutalize communities, and violently target law-abiding immigrants,” said the Democratic leaders. “Dramatic changes at the Department of Homeland Security are needed. Federal agents who have broken the law must be criminally prosecuted. The paramilitary tactics must cease and desist. Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for Americans, not kill them in cold blood.”
“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives,” they added. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
On MS NOW, Jeffries on Tuesday called Noem “a despicable, corrupt, pathological liar.”
The GOP-controlled House is not likely to move forward with impeaching Noem, but a resolution to do so now has 150 Democratic cosponsors, with more than two-thirds of the party’s House members backing the call to bring charges against the homeland security secretary and former South Dakota governor. Should Democrats win back control of the House in the November elections, they could move forward with the effort if she is still in office.
“Secretary Noem has blood on her hands,” Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) who introduced the impeachment articles, said in a statement. “Under her leadership, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were murdered.”
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government, and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state," said one attorney in the case.
By Brett Wilkins
Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed during the Trump administration’s internationally condemned bombing spree against boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the United States.
Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, were killed in one of the at least 36 strikes the Trump administration has launched against civilian boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean since last September. According to the lawsuit and the Trump administration’s own figures, at least 125 people have been killed in such strikes, which are part of the broader US military aggression targeting Venezuela.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts by lawyers from the ACLU, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School on behalf of Joseph’s mother Lenora Burnley and Samaroo’s sister Sallycar Korasingh. The complaint alleges that the US violated the Death on the High Seas Act, which allows relatives to sue for wrongful deaths at sea, and the Alien Tort Statute, which empowers foreign citizens to seek legal redress in US federal courts.
According to the lawsuit:
On October 14, 2025, the United States government authorized and launched a missile strike against a boat carrying six people traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad. The strike killed all six, including Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian nationals who had been fishing in waters off the Venezuelan coast and working on farms in Venezuela, and who were returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, in nearby Trinidad and Tobago.
The October 14 attack was part of an unprecedented and manifestly unlawful US military campaign of lethal strikes against small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean... The United States has not conducted these strikes pursuant to any congressional authorization. Instead, the government has acted unilaterally. And Trump administration officials, including President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have publicized videos of the boat strikes, boasting about and celebrating their own role in killing defenseless people.
“These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification,” the lawsuit asserts. “Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command.”
Burnley said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: “Chad was a loving and caring son who was always there for me, for his wife and children, and for our whole family. I miss him terribly. We all do.”
“We know this lawsuit won’t bring Chad back to us, but we’re trusting God to carry us through this, and we hope that speaking out will help get us some truth and closure,” she added.
Korasingh said, “Rishi used to call our family almost every day, and then one day he disappeared, and we never heard from him again.”
“Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family,” she added, referring to her brother’s imprisonment for taking part in the 2009 murder of a street vendor. “If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable.”
Trump officials have offered very little concrete evidence to support their claims that the targeted vessels were smuggling drugs. Critics allege that’s why attorneys at the US Department of Defense reportedly inquired about whether two survivors of an October bombing in the Caribbean could be sent to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) maximum security prison in El Salvador, which has been described by rights groups as a “legal black hole.”
The survivors were ultimately returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador. Some observers said their repatriation showed the Trump administration knew that trying the survivors in US courts would compel officials to explain their dubious legal justification for the attacks, which many experts say are illegal.
Trump officials also considered sending boat strike survivors to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but that would allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus—a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision during the era of extrajudicial imprisonment and torture of terrorism suspects, as well as innocent men and boys, at the facility. The Trump administration has even revived the term “unlawful enemy combatant”—which was used by the Bush administration to categorize people caught up in the War on Terror in a way that skirts the law—to classify boat strike survivors.
The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government has also been criticized for hosting joint military exercises with the United States in the Caribbean Sea amid Trump’s boat-bombing campaign.
ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said Tuesday that “the Trump administration’s boat strikes are the heinous acts of people who claim they can abuse their power with impunity around the world.”
“In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law,” he added.
CCR legal director Baher Azmy argued that “these are lawless killings in cold blood; killings for sport and killings for theater, which is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless.”
“This is a critical step in ensuring accountability, while the individuals responsible may ultimately be answerable criminally for murder and war crimes,” Azmy added.
Hafetz said that “using military force to kill Chad and Rishi violates the most elementary principles of international law.”
“People may not simply be gunned down by the government,” he stressed, “and the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary risk making America a pariah state.”
Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, contended that Trump’s “lethal boat strikes violate our collective understanding of right and wrong.”
“Rishi and Chad wanted only to get home safely to their loved ones; the unconscionable attack on their boat prevented them from doing so,” Rossman added. “It is imperative that we hold this administration accountable, both for their families and for the rule of law itself.”
"Systemic change is needed 'from the cradle to the grave' of plastic production, use, and disposal," said the lead author, calling for "ambitious action from governments and industry transparency."
By Jessica Corbett
A study published Tuesday in the Lancet Planetary Health highlights how humanity’s continued reliance on plastics—which are primarily derived from planet-heating fossil fuels—is expected to harm global health over the next couple of decades.
“Plastics life cycles emit a range of gases and pollutants that contribute to the global burden of disease, including greenhouse gases that drive climate change, air pollutants linked to respiratory illnesses, and hazardous chemicals associated with cancers and other noncommunicable diseases,” the study explains.
“These emissions occur across all stages of the plastics value chain: from oil and gas extraction, which provides the feedstocks for more than 90% of global plastics; to polymer production and product manufacturing, global transportation, recycling, and formal or informal waste management and mismanagement; to the gradual degradation of plastics in the environment,” the publication continues.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, as well as France’s University of Toulouse, modeled various scenarios of plastics production, consumption, and disposal from 2016-40.
“The study is the first of its kind to assess the number of healthy years of life lost (‘disability-adjusted life years’ or ‘DALYS’—a measure of harm) due to greenhouse gases, air pollutants, and toxic chemicals emitted across the life cycle of plastics at a global scale,” according to LSHTM.
The team estimated that without any changes in global plastics policies and practices, annual health impacts would soar from 2.1 million DALYs in 2016 to 4.5 million DALYs by 2040—with a total of 83 million healthy years of life lost over the full study period. Under a business-as-usual scenario, 40% of the health harms would be tied to rising temperatures, nearly a third to air pollution, and over a quarter to toxic chemicals.
Because of limited data—particularly on the use stage of plastics and the chemicals they contain—lead author Megan Deeney of LSHTM toldAgence France-Presse that “this is undoubtedly a vast underestimate of the total human health impacts.”
Still, the researchers were able to offer some insight into the adverse health impacts—thanks to their repurposing of modeling methods typically used to evaluate the environmental footprint of individual products and technologies.
These methods “are an increasingly important tool to tackle sustainability questions at a much larger scale,” study co-author and Exeter professor Xiaoyu Yan said in a statement. “Our study shows that this approach can help uncover the massive impacts of plastics on human health throughout the life cycle. We now need urgent action to reduce the impacts of plastics on the environment and ultimately human health.”
Deeney stressed that such action can’t be restricted to consumers. As she put it, “Our research shows that the adverse health impacts of plastics stretch far beyond the point at which we buy a plastic product or put plastic items in a recycling bin.”
In the US alone, government data suggests that just 5% of plastic waste is recycled annually, according to a Greenpeace report published last month. The advocacy group also noted that only a fifth of the 8.8 million tons of the most commonly produced types of plastics are even recyclable.
“Often the blame is put on us as individual consumers of plastics to solve the problem, but while we all have an important role to play in reducing the use of plastics, our analysis shows systemic change is needed ‘from the cradle to the grave’ of plastic production, use, and disposal,” Deeney said Tuesday. “Much more ambitious action from governments and industry transparency is needed to curb this growing global plastics public health crisis.”
The lead author said that the most effective measure is slashing the production of “unnecessary” plastic. She also pointed out that lack of data doesn’t just impact studies like this one: “Industry nondisclosure and inconsistent reporting of plastics’ chemical composition is severely limiting the ability of life cycle assessments (LCAs) to inform effective policy to protect humans, ecosystems, and the environment.”
The study comes after the latest round of global plastics treaty negotiations stalled in August—which environmentalists called an “abject failure” that should be blamed on the Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, and other major governments opposed to curbing production.
“The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake-up call for the world: Ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head-on,” Greenpeace USA’s Graham Forbes said at the time. “The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground.”
"How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted?"
By Jake Johnson
A broad coalition of more than 1,000 advocacy organizations sent a letter on Tuesday pushing members of Congress to immediately stop all funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies at the forefront of the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation campaign and crackdown on dissent.
“We the undersigned 1,025 organizations write to express our horror, outrage, and deep grief about the news that federal agents have executed a human being in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis,” reads the letter, headlined “No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol.”
“How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted before Congress fulfills its responsibilities and stops these out-of-control agencies from continuing to violently attack our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters?” the coalition asks.
“We demand an immediate halt in all funding for these deadly operations until the violence, abuses, and deaths in American communities and in immigration detention centers stop,” the letter continues. “Congress must refuse to provide one dollar to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol through the appropriations process and immediately take action to revoke the tens of billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill.”
The message, organized by Detention Watch Network, was released as US senators prepared to consider a package of six appropriations bills that includes a measure proposing more than $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE and CBP. The DHS funding package includes $10 billion for ICE, which is currently the highest-funded US law enforcement agency.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said his caucus will block the appropriations package if it includes the DHS funding bill, which Republicans still support despite the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. The Washington Postreported Tuesday that DHS agents “have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July, and as in the recent shootings in Minneapolis, in each case the Trump administration has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed.”
“Most of the incidents involve officers firing at drivers during enforcement stops in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, where DHS has surged federal immigration officers,” the Post noted. “At least 10 people have been struck by bullets—including four US citizens. Three people have been killed.”
Democrats have proposed stripping the DHS appropriations measure from the broader funding package and considering it as a standalone bill, with passage conditioned on ICE reforms.
“What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined a number of proposed reforms, including “no more masked secret police” and specific requirements that ICE agents obtain “a warrant from an independent judge before barging into people’s homes and snatching people from their communities.”
“That’s just the start,” Warren wrote on social media. “There’s more we can do to rein in ICE. Stripping the DHS bill from the Senate budget package this week is one of the best options we’ve got to slam on the brakes, condition any funding, and put some basic controls in place to stop this violence.”
In their letter on Tuesday, the advocacy coalition demanded that senators “act decisively and show DHS and the communities you serve that this cruelty and lawlessness is unacceptable and must end now.”
“When federal agents are patrolling the streets of American cities and gunning people down in broad daylight, the bare minimum response is to stop the funding that enables these violent agencies to carry out these atrocities,” the coalition wrote. “You have the power and responsibility to stop this. What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so.”
“Can’t we just say no to Trump for once?" asked Mayor Giuseppe Sala.
By Julia Conley
The mayor of Milan, which is set to host the 2026 Winter Olympics starting February 6, was not convinced Tuesday by assurances that US immigration officials fulfilling security duties at the games will only be providing protections for top US officials.
Sala’s comments came after the US Embassy in Rome confirmed an official statement from ICE saying that federal officers are scheduled to provide “diplomatic security” during the Milan Cortina games—days after US immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, the third US citizen killed by employees of the Department of Homeland Security in less than four weeks.
ICE has also garnered international outrage with its detention of people without criminal records even as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim it is working to deport the “worst of the worst violent criminals,” and particularly its abduction of young children including 5-year-old Liam Ramos, 7-year-old Diana Crespo, and 2-year-old Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis.
Two Italian journalists were also threatened by ICE agents on Sunday while they were reporting on immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, with the officers telling them, “This is your only warning, if you keep following us, we will break your window and we will pull you out of the vehicle.” Filming and observing ICE agents, as long as one is not interfering with their operations, is a protected right under the US Constitution.
ICE toldAl Jazeera that “obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries,” but Sala suggested that it was not entirely obvious that officers with the agency would not perpetrate violence at the Olympics.
Officers with ICE, he told RTL 102.5 radio, “don’t guarantee they’re aligned with our democratic security management methods.”
“This is a militia that kills,” he added. “Can’t we just say no to Trump for once?”
ICE toldAgence France-Presse that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department will be “supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations.”
“All security operations remain under Italian authority,” said the agency.
If mitigating risks is the goal, said Alessandro Zan, a member of European Party representing Italy’s Democratic Party, “it’s paradoxical to entrust it to those who are the first to commit crimes, operating with violence, and killing innocents in cold blood.”
“In Italy, we don’t want those who trample human rights and act outside any democratic control,” said Zan. “It’s unacceptable to think that an agency of this kind could have a role, whatever it may be, in our country.”
HSI typically investigates “the illegal movement of people, goods, money, contraband, weapons, and sensitive technology into, out of, and through the United States,” according to its website.
The Associated Press reported that HSI is among the federal agencies that have helped provide security for US officials at previous Olympic games.
In Milan, the US delegation attending the February 6 opening ceremony will be led by Vice President JD Vance, along with Second Lady Usha Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Sala told RTL that the city “can take care of their security ourselves. We don’t need ICE.”
Renew Europe, a centrist group within European Parliament, added that it is “not acceptable” for ICE officers to be welcomed in Milan as the agency carries out a violent immigration crackdown across the US.
The Green and Left Alliance (AVS) and Azione, two Italian opposition parties that counter the right-wing government, have started petitions calling on officials to bar any agents with ICE from involvement with security operations at the Milan Cortina games.
La Repubblicareported that the Italian government considered blocking ICE from attending the games as part of the security detail, but declined to do so.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said Zan, “should clearly state what is happening and provide guarantees that Trump’s political police will not set foot in our country.”
"This is the result of deliberate policy, pursued with full knowledge of its effects. This is not war. It is genocide."
By Julia Conley
An analysis of Gaza’s civil registry by Al Jazeera detailed Monday how thousands of US-backed Israeli military’s attacks on the exclave become stories not only of individual casualties but of “lineage, heritage, and identity disappearing in an instant”—with 2,700 families entirely wiped out since October 2023.
In 6,000 families, Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City, just “a single sole survivor” has been left behind.
Mahmoud reported on an attack that killed a recent high school graduate, whose family had lived in Khan Younis for generations, as well as his father, sister, and 22 members of his extended family.
“Sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins—so many branches gone,” said Mahmoud.
Ismail Al-Thwabta of the Gaza Government Media Office told Al Jazeera that the erasure of more than 2,700 families accounts for more than 8,000 deaths. More than 71,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began attacking the exclave in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, and hundreds have been killed since this past October when a “ceasefire” agreement was reached.
“Forty thousand families were targeted, which means more than four deaths in each family,” Al-Thwabta told Al Jazeera.
Lebanese commentator Sarah Abdallah said the death toll of entire families exemplifies “the intent of genocide.”
“This is not war,” said Abdallah. “This is annihilation.”
Irish Palestinian rights advocate Daniel Lambert of the Bohemian Football Club emphasized that thousands of families have been wiped out or left with just one surviving member with the enablement of the European Union, UK, and US.
Al Jazeera‘s report came days after Trump administration officials unveiled a “master plan” for a “New Gaza”—one including luxury apartments, data centers, and a “New Rafah” built over the rubble of the southern city that was razed by the Israel Defense Forces last year, forcing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh also explained on Al Jazeera Monday how the thousands of babies born in Gaza since October 2023 have not been added to the Population Registry, which is controlled by Israel.
“That leaves their legal status unresolved,” reported Drop Site News. “Without registration, it is unclear how these children would leave Gaza, under what documents, or whether Israel would allow them to return if they do.”
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A US Border Patrol unit drives near the border wall in Pima County, Arizona on November 7, 2025.
(Photo by Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)
This is a developing story… Please check back for updates…
Authorities in Arizona confirmed that an unidentified person is in critical condition after a Tuesday morning shooting that involved US Border Patrol—which is facing mounting scrutiny for its involvement in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operations.
At around 7:30 am local time, the Santa Rita Fire District responded to the shooting near milepost 15 of West Arivaca Road in Pima County, just miles from the Border Patrol checkpoint in Amado and the US-Mexico border.
“Patient care was transferred to a local medical helicopter for rapid transport to a regional trauma center,” the fire department said in a statement. “The incident remains under active investigation by law enforcement agencies.”
The Associated Pressreported that “the area is a common path for drug smugglers and migrants who illegally cross the border, so agents regularly patrol there.”
A Pima County Sheriff’s Department (PCSD) spokesperson told the Arizona Daily Star that the shooting involved a Border Patrol agent and a “suspect.”
At the FBI’s request, PCSD is leading an investigation into the agent’s use of force. The department said in a statement that “such requests are standard practice when a federal agency is involved in a shooting incident within Pima County and consistent with long-standing relationships built through time to promote transparency.”
“We ask the community to remain patient and understanding as this investigation moves forward,” the department also said. “PCSD will thoroughly examine all aspects of the incident, however, these investigations are complex and require time.”
News 4 Tucsonreported that Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos plans to hold a news conference at 4:00 pm.
A spokesperson for the FBI’s Phoenix office confirmed to the Daily Star that it is investigating “an alleged assault on a federal officer.”
“The subject was taken into custody,” the FBI toldFox News. “This remains an ongoing investigation. No further information will be provided.”
No More Deaths, a humanitarian aid group in the region, said that the incident “reflects a long history of violence from federal immigration enforcement. Since 2010, there have been 364 documented deadly encounters with Border Patrol. The number of deaths and disappearance due to Border Patrol enforcement is estimated to reach over 10,000.”
“In the present moment, excessive use of force from federal agents has become especially visible. This past week, Border Patrol agents shot and killed a second legal observer in Minneapolis,” the group noted. The killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have ramped up protests against Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota and demands for accountability across the country.
“As a humanitarian organization founded on the belief that all people deserve dignity, we condemn all acts of violence from Border Patrol; call for a thorough investigation; and demand that the victim receive continued access to medical attention,” said No More Deaths, which also called for the abolition of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
CBP and ICE are both part of the US Department of Homeland Security. The various shootings and other violence by DHS agents in recent months have fueled calls for the resignation or impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump.
Although the Trump administration has responded to the outrage in Minnesota by relocating a key official—the Atlanticreported Monday that “Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol ‘commander at large’ and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon”—the president said Tuesday that Noem won’t resign.
DHS violence has also complicated a congressional effort to prevent a federal government shutdown before the end of the month, given the growing number of lawmakers and people across the country demanding “no funds for ICE and Border Patrol.”
Agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigate the location where Alex Pretti was shot and killed on January 27, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“It seems we may be looking at a bona fide cover-up,” said one reporter.
As it attempts to shield immigration agents from responsibility for killing Alex Pretti, the Trump administration is asking a court to dismiss an order preventing the destruction of evidence in the case.
Shortly after a gang of agents shot and killed the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse in Minneapolis on Saturday, agents reportedly rounded up witnesses to the killing and transported them to the nearby Whipple Building, where they were detained for several hours, according to a review of court affidavits by CBS News.
Agents also ordered local police to leave the scene of the shooting, but the order was ignored by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who instructed local officers to preserve the crime scene.
US District Judge Eric Tostrud swiftly issued an order barring federal agents from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting, including evidence “removed from the scene” or “taken into [the federal government’s] exclusive custody.”
It came following a request from Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), who said his officers had been turned away by agents with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Trump administration has already preemptively declared that agents’ shooting of Pretti was justifiable, as it has done in at least 16 DHS shooting cases, according to an investigation published Tuesday by the Washington Post.
Members of the administration have stated that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” and an “assassin” who intended to “massacre law enforcement,” despite ample video evidence of the encounter leading to his death showing nothing of the sort.
On Monday, lawyers for the Department of Justice filed a legal motion, first reported on by the New York Times, opposing Tostrud’s order preventing federal agencies from destroying evidence. The agencies, the DOJ argued, “are already obligated by agency policy to preserve the evidence at issue.”
“While it’s not uncommon for the Trump administration to oppose judges’ orders against it, this case seems particularly unnecessary—and suspicious,” wrote Edith Olmsted in the New Republic.
Radley Balko, a journalist who covers criminal justice, pondered why the administration would need to oppose the motion at all if it was making no effort to destroy evidence.
“In a sane country, the DOJ response to a motion asking a judge to stop the government from destroying evidence after federal officers shot and killed a man in broad daylight would be, ‘Of course, we wouldn’t destroy evidence. We agree with this motion,’” he wrote on social media. “That is not what happened.”
The motion comes as the administration is shielding many other pieces of information from the public, leaving the series of events to be pieced together through video footage shot by bystanders.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has said multiple agents were recording body camera footage during the shooting, but has announced no plans to release it.
Meanwhile, the administration has refused to publicly name the agents involved in the shooting, with the recently sacked Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino asserting that publicizing their names was tantamount to “doxing.”
“Clearly, DHS is taking unprecedented actions to control the investigation into the second broad daylight killing of a civilian by its agents in just the past month,” Olmsted wrote. “When coupled with Customs and Border Patrol’s efforts to shield its officers from accountability, and Trump officials’ desperation to change the subject, it seems we may be looking at a bona fide cover-up.”
It is time for local and state governments to resist more forcefully the lawlessness and cowardice of an out-of-control federal government under the thumb of Trump.
This fascist propaganda dishonors the government agency whose charge is to support the workers of this country. It has no business deifying any President, particularly one already drunk with power.
What is unfolding in Minneapolis is frightening, but the response of its people has been inspiring.
By Ariel Gold
A person is detained by police during a demonstration at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International airport amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Top officials—despite what anyone with two good eyes could see for themselves—immediately activated Donald Trump's authoritarian playbook: lie, smear, double-down, and cover-up.
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