The U.S. Justice Department has moved to drop charges against two \u200bmen charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January after an officer shot a Venezuelan immigrant, \u200ba court document showed on Thursday. The top federal prosecutor in \u200bMinnesota, Daniel Rosen, asked a judge to \u2060dismiss the charges, writing that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations.” \u200bRosen sought the dismissal \u200cwith prejudice, which means the charges cannot be reintroduced. The shooting that wounded the Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, came during President Donald \u200bTrump’s widely condemned surge of immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Trump’s immigration crackdown, said in January officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop \u200con Sosa-Celis when \u200che sped away, \u200bcrashed his car and fled on foot. DHS said at the time that Sosa-Celis and two oth
er men hit an ICE officer who pursued him with a snow shovel and broom handle, prompting the shooting. But court documents \u200bunsealed later told a different story. An FBI affidavit said the ICE officers had scanned a license plate registered to a different person suspected of an immigration violation, leading them \u200bto chase the wrong person. The affidavit said another man was driving the car and was the sole occupant – not Sosa-Celis. The car’s actual driver – another Venezuelan immigrant – crashed and fled to an apartment building where Sosa-Celis was present, it said. At the building, an \u200cICE officer trying to detain the driver was struck by him and Sosa-Celis with a broom, while a third man used a shovel \u2013 before the officer fired. While DHS \u2060said initially that the \u200bofficer “fired a defensive shot to defend his life”, the FBI affidavit said the alleged attackers dropped the broom and shovel when they saw the officer draw his gun and were fleeing as \u2060he fired. T<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Justice Department has moved to drop charges against two \u200bmen charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January after an officer shot a Venezuelan immigrant, \u200ba court document showed on Thursday. The top federal prosecutor in \u200bMinnesota, Daniel Rosen, asked a judge to \u2060dismiss the charges, writing that “newly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n