FBI now leading investigation into fatal shooting of Alex Pretti
The FBI is now leading the federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, with the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security – known as Homeland Security Investigations – supporting the investigation, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.
HSI had been leading the probe into Saturday's shooting of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The FBI's lead role in the investigation marks a major reversal from earlier in the week, when sources told CBS News that the bureau was only playing a marginal role in assisting HSI by helping analyze some of the evidence in the case.
At a press conference Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the FBI was investigating. He also said the criminal section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division would be participating in the probe.
"The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has the best experts in the world on this," Blanche told reporters. "They've been doing it for decades. And so I expect the investigation will proceed with those parameters."
Blanche stopped short of formally calling it a civil rights investigation, however, and declined to discuss the scope of what the FBI will be examining.
"I don't want to overstate what's happening because I don't want this takeaway to be that there's some massive civil rights investigation that's happening," he said.
He also told reporters, "This is what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI when there are circumstances like what we saw last Saturday."
The decision to initially place HSI in the lead investigative role was unusual and raised questions among current and former federal law enforcement officials about the credibility and breadth of the probe, given that HSI is not typically tasked with investigating officer-involved shootings and is not structured or equipped to handle core elements of such cases, including ballistics analysis, forensic processing, firearm examinations, video review and large-scale witness canvassing.
HSI historically has investigated crimes with an international or immigration nexus, including human trafficking, drug smuggling, child exploitation and the theft of stolen artifacts.
The FBI, by contrast, is the agency that typically leads "color of law" civil rights investigations into law enforcement officials who may have violated people's constitutional rights, such as using excessive force.
Federal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota earlier this week held a somber meeting with Minnesota U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen, where they questioned him about why they had not been allowed to open a formal civil rights investigation into Pretti's death, CBS News previously reported.
Two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents fired their weapons during the shooting, according to a government report sent to Congress and obtained by CBS News that does not mention Pretti reaching for his firearm.
CBS News previously reported that the FBI was responsible for processing only Pretti's firearm at one of its forensic laboratories, while the firearms discharged by Customs and Border Protection personnel during the fatal confrontation remained in HSI custody.
To date, it remains unclear at this point which federal agency now possesses most of the evidence in the case.
Blanche, when pressed by CBS News on whether the FBI has since received the evidence for processing – including the firearms of officers involved in Pretti's fatal shooting – told reporters, "I don't know. I don't have an answer to those questions."
In addition to the criminal probe, Customs and Border Protection's Office of Professional Responsibility previously launched an internal administrative review into the incident.
The federal agents who were involved in the deadly shooting have been placed on administrative leave, a federal law enforcement official previously confirmed to CBS News.
It is unclear exactly when the personnel were placed on leave. Typically, the protocol is for federal law enforcement agents who have been involved in a shooting to be placed on administrative leave during the course of the investigation.
In another encounter with federal immigration officers 11 days before the shooting, Pretti was seen on video confronting agents on a Minneapolis street, a Pretti family representative confirmed to CBS News.
In the video, recorded on Jan. 13 and posted Wednesday by The News Movement, a digital media outlet, Pretti is seen kicking and damaging the taillight of a government SUV. The vehicle then stops, and federal agents emerge and tackle him to the ground.
President Trump reacted to the video overnight on social media, calling Pretti an "agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist."
"It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control," Mr. Trump said on his Truth Social platform at 1:26 a.m. EST Friday. "The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!"
