The Justice Department opened a federal civil-rights probe into the death of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse fatally shot by Border Patrol officers last Saturday in Minneapolis.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday that the FBI is leading the investigation, with the involvement of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
“This is a standard investigation by the FBI when there are circumstances like what we saw last Saturday,” Blanche said at a press conference. “And that investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the civil rights division, it will involve those.”
Blanche said that the DOJ is “looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened … looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.”
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While the Civil Rights Division is often involved in investigations into shootings by law enforcement, the office was not initially among those looking into Pretti’s killing. Instead, the Trump administration said that the Department of Homeland Security would investigate, with Customs and Border Protection reviewing whether its officers followed policy and Homeland Security Investigations looking into Pretti’s conduct.
But the fact that top officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, had quickly excused the shooting with misleading information made many critics concerned about the internal investigations. Critics of the decision also said that HSI is not normally trained to investigate officer-involved shootings.
Minnesota authorities have had limited access to evidence, including Pretti’s firearm, raising transparency concerns.
Pretti was the second American to be killed by federal agents in Minneapolis this month. On January 7, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, another U.S. citizen.
When asked whether Good’s killing is also under a civil rights probe, Blanche said the department handles each case based on its circumstances.
“There are investigations that happen all the time with respect to shootings like what happened last Saturday, and cases are handled differently by this department depending on the circumstances,” he said.
Blanche previously had said in an interview with Fox News that the DOJ was “not investigating” the shooting of Good when asked about the department’s response to her killing.
At least six people in the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section resigned over the department’s handling of the Good killing.
Noem confirmed Friday that the FBI is leading the federal probe with support from Homeland Security Investigations, while Customs and Border Protection continues an internal review.
“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and give them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation,” Noem said in a Fox News interview.
Blanche emphasized that the DOJ is coordinating with other federal agencies where appropriate but did not provide further specifics.
“There is a process that has to be allowed to play out internally with these law-enforcement organizations, and certainly with the FBI as well, to allow this investigation to go on,” he said.
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