WASHINGTON: The US \u200cJustice Department has moved to drop charges against two men charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January after an officer shot \u200ba Venezuelan immigrant, a court document showed on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, asked a judge to dismiss the charges, writing that \u201cnewly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations.\u201d Rosen sought the dismissal with prejudice, which means the charges cannot be reintroduced.<\/p>\n
The shooting that wounded the Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, came during President Donald Trump\u2019s widely condemned \u200csurge of \u200cimmigration enforcement actions in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
The Department \u200bof \u200cHomeland \u2060Security, which \u200boversees \u2060Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, said in January officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop on Sosa-Celis when he sped away, crashed his car and fled on foot.<\/p>\n
DHS said at the time that Sosa-Celis and two other men hit an ICE officer who pursued him with a snow shovel and broom handle, prompting the shooting.<\/p>\n
But court documents unsealed \u2060later told a different story.<\/p>\n
An FBI affidavit \u200csaid the ICE officers had \u200cscanned a license plate registered to a different \u200bperson suspected of an immigration violation, \u200cleading them to chase the wrong person.<\/p>\n
The affidavit said \u200canother man was driving the car and was the sole occupant \u2014 not Sosa-Celis. The car\u2019s actual driver \u2014 another Venezuelan immigrant \u2014 crashed and fled to an apartment building where Sosa-Celis was present, it said.<\/p>\n
At the building, an \u200cICE officer trying to detain the driver was struck by him and Sosa-Celis with a broom, \u2060while a \u2060third man used a shovel \u2013 before the officer fired.<\/p>\n
While DHS said initially that the officer \u201cfired a defensive shot to defend his life,\u201d the FBI affidavit said the alleged attackers dropped the broom and shovel when they saw the officer draw his gun and were fleeing as he fired.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s use of armed federal immigration agents has led to nationwide protests, especially after last month\u2019s fatal shootings of two US citizens in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Rights advocates say Trump\u2019s actions have made the environment unsafe for citizens \u200band immigrants and violate due process \u200bprotections. Trump\u2019s border czar Tom Homan said Trump has agreed to end his deportation surge in Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The US \u200cJustice Department has moved to drop charges against two men charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January after an officer shot \u200ba Venezuelan immigrant, a court document showed on Thursday. The top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, asked a judge to dismiss the charges, writing that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93669,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93655\/revisions\/93669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}