Law enforcement legal expert on Minneapolis ICE killings: "Everyone should care that fair investigations happen"

Minnesota and Minneapolis officials are demanding evidence of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti be preserved. 

CBS News confirms the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension filed a new lawsuit alleging federal officials mishandled evidence at Saturday's crime scene in south Minneapolis. That comes after they say they were completely blocked from accessing that scene despite having a warrant.

WCCO spoke with Rachel Moran, a University of St. Thomas law professor who has researched law enforcement accountability for decades. 

"I don't know of a situation like this. It's unusual and it's really troubling because the state does have the authority to investigate whether a crime occurred. And if we have the federal government actively preventing them from doing that and ignoring a court order, that's a power grab that's deeply concerning," Moran said.

And with accountability in connection to law enforcement shootings, Moran said the involvement of third-party investigators is crucial.

"We always want to be careful that an agency isn't biased, and so if it's in an agency investigating its own officers, that has an obvious potential for bias. They may want to absolve their own officers," Moran said. "And so that's the reasoning behind having an outside agency investigate any police shooting or any law enforcement shooting."

Moran says the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is the state agency specifically tasked with investigating officer homicides — and federal officers are not off the hook.

"I know people get confused because it's a federal agent who committed a shooting, and the same with Renee Good as well, but the fact that it's a federal agent doesn't mean the state can't investigate or that the state can't possibly prosecute if there's a reason to call this a crime," Moran said. "And so what we're seeing from the federal government is they're trying to claim, 'well, they're federal agents, they're immune,' and that's just incorrect."

Moran said it's possible the courts could get involved in this situation due to the bureau acquiring a warrant for its own investigation into Pretti's killing.

"But it gets tricky if it's to investigate the crime scene because there's already potential contamination of the scene hours later," Moran said.

Moran said she's concerned federal investigators will again decline to go after the agent involved, like in Good's killing.

"I just have questions about who's in charge and is anyone investigating this, and I have real concerns about the federal government saying they're investigating because we just had a shooting two-and-a-half weeks ago by an ICE agent where the federal government claimed they were investigating and we now know they had no intention of pursuing a real investigation," Moran said. "We know that six Department of Justice attorneys resigned apparently in protest over the failure to investigate. We know that an FBI agent in Minneapolis resigned over the apparent failure to investigate. We know that the Trump administration has said it has no intention of pursuing an investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good. So, to have that and than two-and-a-half weeks later have another shooting by another federal agent and have the federal government say, 'well, don't worry about it, we'll investigate,' that's deeply troubling."

Moran said the fact Pretti was armed — and lawfully so — at the time of his killing may make a criminal inquiry into his death different then one into Good's, who was not armed when she was shot dead by ICE officer Jonathan Ross.

"I don't want to jump to any conclusions about whether this was a murder or not. Certainly the initial video that came out is very, very troubling. It doesn't look like a justified shooting, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. That's why I think an investigation is important," Moran said. "If there was a gun and the officers were actively being threatened, and a reasonable officer would have believed it was necessary to shoot Mr. Pretti in order to protect himself or others, it could be a justified shooting."

Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino told the press on Saturday that his officers were afraid for their lives during their deadly encounter with Pretti.

"Minnesota has a statute specifically about when police officers can use force, and it says essentially that an officer can be justified in using deadly force, which includes a shooting, if a reasonable officer in that situation would have believed the deadly force was necessary to prevent death or imminent serious bodily harm to himself or others," Moran said. "So yes, there are situations for sure when officers are justified in using force, even deadly force. The concern I have here is, was this actually one of those cases, and we know that a federal court judge has specifically found that Greg Bovino himself has lied about previous allegations of assaults against his agency and against his officers. So I am concerned when he's the spokesperson saying, 'this is a justified shooting, our officers were afraid.'"

Moran says it's possible the investigation into Pretti's killing may not even occur.

"I think that's a real concern. The investigation into Renee Nicole Good's death by the federal government, at least, seems to not be happening or not at least on a serious level. And so I think we should all be concerned that that could be the case here as well," Moran said.

Moran warns that what's happened so far in Operation Metro Surge may set a precedent across the country.

"It's about giving up complete control to the federal government and armed federal agents, and so these types of shootings could happen anywhere. They have happened elsewhere … Border Patrol shot a woman in Chicago. Fortunately she lived, but they claimed they did it because she was assaulting them, and it turns out that that was untrue," Moran said. "And so I think everyone should pay attention. And again, I'm not trying to jump to conclusions about whether this was justified, but I think everyone should care that fair investigations happen when armed agents are patrolling the streets and killing people."