In the two months Minnesota has been under siege by federal agents, immigration officers have shot and killed two U.S. citizens, poet and artist Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Local and state law enforcement say they’ve been blocked from properly investigating the shootings of Good and Pretti.

“The federal government has blocked our state BCA, so that’s the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. They are the state law enforcement agency that has authority to investigate any kind of deadly use of force involving police,” says Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who is leading local investigations into the killings of Good and Pretti.

“We’ve not gotten anything from the federal government,” Moriarty says. “To tell you how odd this situation is, we are getting our information from the media … we are not getting that from the federal government.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy speaks with Moriarty, whose office has jurisdiction over both killings. Moriarty says federal agents have blocked local and state law enforcement from properly investigating the killings. Even Moriarty, the top prosecutor in Minneapolis, does not know the identity of the agents who killed Pretti.

In response, Moriarty says, “We set up a portal and asked the community to send any kind of videos or any other kind of evidence so that we could collect absolutely everything that we possibly could.” The BCA, she says, was even “blocked physically, actually, by federal agents from processing the scene where Alex Pretti was shot.”

Meanwhile, attacks by the administration on Minnesota’s Somali citizens persist. At her first town hall of the year in Minneapolis, an attendee sprayed Rep. Ilhan Omar with an unidentified substance on Tuesday. Trump has backtracked on some of his bluster and removed Border Patrol Gregory Bovino from Minnesota, replacing him with border czar Tom Homan.

None of that has changed things on the ground yet in Minneapolis, says Moriarty. “Minnesotans care about their neighbors. They’re delivering meals to people. They are there and they do not approve of the fact that their federal government is attacking them and their neighbors.

“We hear a lot of people talking to us about how they understand the threat from the administration or from DHS on their neighbors and on their communities, and it’s really much more rooted in an understanding that they think their freedoms are under threat, even if they are not an immigrant or even if they don’t really have deep ties to immigrant communities, that this really matters to them and it really bothers them,” says Jill Garvey, co-director of States at the Core, an organization that leads and runs ICE Watch training programs. “So we hear a lot from folks who just haven’t been engaged previously. But this for all those reasons is enough for them to step up.”

Garvey says her organization is training community members in how to properly document ICE. “We also know that we can’t stop all this aggression,” Garvey says. “The aggression is the point of these operations. So we can’t guarantee that people aren’t going to be targeted with violent actions from federal law enforcement. What we can say is, if you’re doing this in community, other people are going to be watching.”

Garvey says the administration’s claims that paid agitators are fueling protests around the country is a baseless attempt to save face as public opinion turns against it.

“It’s just another part of the propaganda machine. They need an explanation for why they’re losing. … This is a very basic training that we’re providing and that most other people are providing to folks rooted in how to be a good neighbor, frankly. How to assert your rights, how to protect your neighbor’s rights,” says Garvey.

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Akela Lacy.

Federal agents have shot three people in Minnesota, killing two U.S. citizens, since they descended on the state in December as part of President Donald Trump’s massive surge in efforts to hunt down immigrants.

Kristi Noem: Let me deliver a message from President Trump to the world. If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it. Let me be clear: If you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down.

AL: The administration quickly tried to paint poet and artist Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti — the two people killed by ICE and Border Patrol Agents this month in Minneapolis — as “domestic terrorists.”

KN: If you look at what the definition of “domestic terrorism” is, it completely fits this situation on the ground. This individual, as you saw in the video that we released just 48 hours after this incident, showed that this officer was hit by her vehicle, she weaponized it …

Reporter: The White House has labeled the man who was killed in Minnesota a “domestic terrorist.” Is that something you agree with? And have you seen any evidence?

KN: When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of “domestic terrorism.”

Gregory Bovino: This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.

AL: But video evidence circulating online and digital investigations from various news outlets flatly refuted those claims. After massive outrage from the public and even some of Trump’s Republican colleagues — several of whom are now joining Democratic calls for him to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — Trump has, as of Monday, appeared to backtrack on some of his bluster.

After having attacked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz publicly and blaming him and other Democrats for the killing of Pretti, Trump spoke by phone with Walz and said they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength.” For his part, Walz said Trump had agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota.

By Tuesday, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino and several agents were set to leave the state. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, is expected to take over. The two agents who fired at Pretti — whose identities are still not public — have been placed on administrative leave as of Wednesday.

Meanwhile, local and state law enforcement have accused federal agents of stymying investigations into the killings of Good and Pretti, and have sued to stop the feds from destroying evidence in both cases. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, who oversees criminal cases in Minneapolis and has come under attack from Trump’s Department of Justice, has called Trump’s decision not to conduct a federal investigation into the killing of Renee Good “incomprehensible.” Moriarty’s office has jurisdiction to investigate both killings.

Now, we’re joined by Minneapolis’s chief prosecutor, who’s part of the team of state and local officials investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Welcome to the show, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

Mary Moriarty: Thank you so much.

AL: We’re speaking on Wednesday morning, and your office just held a press conference announcing the formation of the “Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach.” Can you tell us about what the aims of this group are? Who’s in it?

MM: It was formed to support prosecutors around the country with resources and just a collaboration should the federal government come into their cities or their jurisdictions, because these issues can be complicated and sometimes resources are scarce and it’s helpful to have the support of other people around the country.

The other goal, I think, is to really assure the public. One of the things that we’ve seen here in Minneapolis, and in Hennepin County and in Minnesota, is that people are seeing federal agents engage in behavior which seems unlawful or at least inappropriate, and they aren’t seeing any consequences or accountability.

I have tried to make it very clear that as Hennepin County attorney — and by the way, that’s Minneapolis and its many suburbs — that our office does have jurisdiction over shootings, any kind of homicide that happens in Hennepin County. It does not matter where you work, if it’s federal government or not. We do have jurisdiction.

There are some more complicated issues involving potential federal defenses, but those are something we would face in court. And so I think it’s helpful for us as prosecutors to be collaborating across the country to ensure our communities that we will stand up and we will hold people accountable should they engage in unlawful behavior in our cities.

AL: In that vein, can you tell us about the investigations you’re conducting into the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti?

MM: So, as you know, and as I think the country probably knows, the federal government has blocked our state BCA, so that’s the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. They are the state law enforcement agency that has authority to investigate any kind of deadly use of force involving police. Now their authority is statutory for Minnesota Peace Officers, but they still have the expertise. This is all they do.

And I had talked to the FBI, I had talked to the U.S. attorney, I had talked to the head of the BCA when Renee Good was killed. And we all had an agreement — which was unsurprising because all of us work well together — that there would be a joint investigation into the shooting and killing of Renee Good. And then suddenly, the BCA got kicked out. We were told that came from Washington, the administration, essentially. And so we were determined to do as much investigation as we could in conjunction with the BCA.

We set up a portal and asked the community to send any kind of videos or any other kind of evidence so that we could collect absolutely everything that we possibly could. And the whole goal is to try to collect enough evidence to make a decision about whether charges are appropriate or not. And we are actually doing the same thing in the shooting of Alex Pretti; the BCA is conducting an investigation there. They were also blocked physically, actually, by federal agents from processing the scene where Alex Pretti was shot.

That actually led us to get a search warrant. The BCA drafted a search warrant. We made sure a judge was available. And so a judge signed a search warrant, and federal agents would not allow access to the scene even with that. And so that is why we filed the lawsuit in federal court Saturday. And we asked also for a temporary restraining order to force the government to preserve and not alter any of the evidence in that case. Later Saturday evening that was granted by a federal judge. And then there was a hearing two days later on Monday for the judge to hear from both parties to decide whether that TRO should be permanent — and we’re waiting to hear the judge’s ruling on that.

AL: So your office and the BCA sued the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel. It’s my understanding that in this hearing that you’re talking about, the judge didn’t issue an immediate decision, but it’s still ongoing and you have this temporary restraining order to provide access to evidence. Have you been able to access it?

MM: No. So actually the temporary restraining order was actually just to force the federal government to preserve and not alter.

AL: Mmm, OK.

MM: We’re not at the point of getting access or asking the court for access yet. It was because they were, like I said, physically preventing the BCA from processing the scene.

I have heard various officials in the administration make the claim that it was actually the public that prevented the BCA from entering the scene. I don’t know if that’s a lie, or they just don’t know what they’re talking about, but we had a prosecutor there. I was in contact with the BCA. I was watching livestream video, and you could see federal agents standing about 2 feet apart with large batons. And so there’s absolutely no way the community prevented the BCA from getting there.

But because they went to such great lengths to block the BCA from trying to just do what they normally do — what their job is — and because of hearing very plainly that the administration has no intent to investigate the shooting of Renee Good — in fact, bizarrely, they were going to investigate her and her widow —we are taking this step by step. And so the first step was to ask a court to order the federal government to preserve that evidence and not alter it in any way.

AL: You’ve said that you have substantial evidence to consider charges in the case. Are you going to charge the officers in — I’m talking about both cases — in Good’s case and in —?

MM: My goal was to collect as much evidence as we possibly could and then make a decision about whether charges are appropriate or not. I’m not going to say what we’re going to do or promise that we are going to do it because it really is important to gather as much evidence as we can.

We still don’t have the autopsy results in either case. That’s not unusual because the medical examiner does not issue preliminary results. They’re very cautious; they do a bunch of testing. I understand what it’s going to say in the Renee Good case, and I know that the family has released........

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