Minnesota's attorney general, its top county prosecutor, and the head of the state's criminal investigation bureau filed suit against the federal government on Tuesday, alleging that the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have stonewalled their efforts to investigate three separate shootings by federal agents during immigration enforcement operations earlier this year.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names Attorney General Pam Bondi and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem as defendants. The plaintiffs are Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty, and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans.
At the center of the complaint: the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the wounding of Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, all of which occurred during Operation Metro Surge.
According to CBS News, the lawsuit paints a picture of a federal government that has refused, at nearly every turn, to cooperate with state investigators. According to the complaint, state officials have been denied access to physical evidence, witness identities, and even basic case information.
In Good's case, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has tried repeatedly to gain access to her vehicle, which it says has:
"never been examined or processed."
The lawsuit elaborates further:
"The BCA has repeatedly asked the FBI to provide them with Ms. Good's car or to allow the BCA to execute their search warrant on the car. FBI officials have either refused or not responded to these requests."
DHS has maintained that Good "was impeding law enforcement and weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to federal law enforcement." If that's true, one might expect the agency to welcome an independent examination of the evidence. Instead, the car sits untouched.
In the Pretti case, the former ICU nurse was fatally shot by masked federal agents. To this day, according to the lawsuit:
"To date, the federal government has not provided the identities of the masked federal agents who shot Mr. Pretti to the BCA or HCAO."
The DOJ initially declined to open its own investigation into Pretti's death. DHS took the lead in investigating its own two agents. The Justice Department relented later amid mounting pressure, with Deputy Attorney Todd Blanche announcing that the Civil Rights Division would participate in the probe. But CBS News previously reported that the division dispatched Brandon Wrobelski, described as a lawyer in its Employment Litigation Section with no experience in federal criminal cases. The probe was later shut down, and multiple federal prosecutors resigned in protest.
The Sosa-Celis case follows an even stranger trajectory. The Venezuelan national was shot and wounded by a federal agent on January 14. Federal prosecutors initially filed criminal charges against him, accusing him of attacking the agent who shot him. Those charges were dismissed in February after prosecutors cited "newly discovered evidence" that did not support the case.
A DHS spokesperson acknowledged that a review of the incident:
"revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements."
Those officers were placed on administrative leave. The U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating. But here again, state investigators say they have been shut out.
Perhaps the most revealing allegation in the complaint concerns the federal government's posture toward evidence sharing. According to the lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney made the arrangement clear:
"The U.S. Attorney conveyed that evidence would be shared in only one direction: DOJ expected the BCA to share its evidence with federal authorities, but federal authorities had no intention of sharing their evidence with the State."
The Hennepin County District Attorney's Office issued formal "Touhy" requests to both DHS and DOJ seeking cooperation. The DOJ has not responded. DHS punted the request on the Good case to the Justice Department and did not respond to requests in the other two cases.
The complaint alleges violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, charges unlawful withholding and unreasonable delay of agency action, and invokes the 10th Amendment. The lawsuit calls the federal government's conduct "arbitrary and capricious" and argues:
"DOJ has not identified any lawful basis that would justify their refusal to share evidence with Plaintiffs related to the shootings of Ms. Good, Mr. Pretti, or Mr. Sosa-Celis. Nor did DOJ provide a lawful justification for its dramatic departure from prior long-standing practice of state-federal cooperation and evidence sharing."
This is where the story gets uncomfortable for everyone, and where honest analysis matters more than tribal instinct.
Keith Ellison is not a figure who inspires confidence among conservatives. His record is what it is. Mary Moriarty presides over a county attorney's office in a city that has spent years undermining law enforcement. These are not natural allies of the immigration enforcement mission, and their motives deserve scrutiny. Minnesota's political class spent years making the state a magnet for illegal immigration and then performatively objecting when the federal government finally acted.
But the principle at stake here is one conservatives have defended for decades: that government agents who use lethal force must be subject to transparent investigation. That evidence cannot simply vanish into a federal black hole because the agency involved finds scrutiny inconvenient. That the 10th Amendment means something.
DHS says it follows proper procedure. A spokesperson stated that all shootings "must be properly reported and reviewed by the agency in accordance with agency policy, procedure, and guidelines," and that following agency review, "ICE and CBP conduct an independent review of the critical incident." If that process is robust and legitimate, then transparency should strengthen the federal government's position, not threaten it.
Consider the Sosa-Celis case alone. Federal agents shot a man. Prosecutors charged him with attacking the agent. Then prosecutors dropped the charges because the evidence didn't hold up. Two officers appear to have lied under oath. And state investigators still can't access the file. That sequence of events should concern anyone who believes enforcement must be credible to be sustainable.
The strongest version of immigration enforcement is one that can withstand scrutiny. Operations that are conducted properly have nothing to fear from investigation. Evidence that vindicates federal agents should be shared eagerly, not hoarded. Every shooting that goes uninvestigated by independent authorities becomes ammunition for those who want to dismantle enforcement entirely.
Ellison and Moriarty will use this lawsuit to grandstand. That much is guaranteed. But the existence of bad-faith critics does not justify opacity. It demands the opposite.
Three people were shot by federal agents. One of them died under circumstances the state has never been allowed to independently examine. Another was charged with a crime that prosecutors later admitted the evidence didn't support, after officers apparently lied. The car in the third case has never been processed.
Conservatives who spent years demanding accountability from the FBI, from the ATF, from every federal agency that overreached during the last administration do not get to abandon that principle when the badge belongs to their side. The rule is simple: if the shooting was justified, prove it. If the evidence is clear, share it.
Silence is not strength. It is the behavior of institutions that have something to hide.
