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Two federal agents involved in the shooting death of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday have been placed on administrative leave, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said.
A spokesman told CBC News in an email that the move was standard protocol, and that he had been on leave since the fatal shooting Saturday.
Video taken from multiple angles shows immigration agents firing multiple shots at Alex Pretty, an ICU nurse at a veterans hospital. His death is the second fatal confrontation between Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and U.S. citizens in Minnesota this month, sparking a national controversy.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it is reviewing the shooting.
US government officials have said Alex Pretty, who was shot dead by ISA agents at a protest in Minneapolis because he had a gun on him, and US President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, ‘could be deadly’. To get a sense of how accurate the government’s initial account is, Andrew Chang breaks down several video angles of the shooting, moment by moment. Images provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters and Getty Images
The U.S. government’s initial assessment of the fatal shooting at Preeti did not say whether a weapon was fired, although initial statements by Trump administration officials highlighted the weapon.
A preliminary assessment by U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that Preeti was shot by two federal officers, a Border Patrol agent and a customs officer after he refused to pull over on orders from a customs official.
In the hours after Preeti was killed on Saturday, senior Trump administration officials identified the ICU nurse as the attacker, a move quickly contradicted by video from the scene.
The US Department of Homeland Security said “a 9mm semi-automatic handgun was presented to US Border Patrol agents”, but did not say whether the weapon was seized. .
White House aide Stephen Miller – the driver of Trump’s immigration agenda – called Pratin a “domestic terrorist” and a “potential killer” without providing evidence to support the claims.
The CBP review, conducted by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility and shared with lawmakers Tuesday, is standard protocol and shared with members of the U.S. Congress to promote transparency, CBP spokesman Hilton Beckham said.
Beckham said the notices “provide a preliminary description of an incident and do not convey any definitive conclusions or investigative findings.”
The details in the preliminary review strengthened the link between how Trump officials described the shooting and the video evidence.