Trump Admin Opposes Order Banning Destruction of Evidence in Pretti Killing
"It seems we may be looking at a bona fide cover-up," said one reporter.
As it attempts to shield immigration agents from responsibility for killing Alex Pretti, the Trump administration is asking a court to dismiss an order preventing the destruction of evidence in the case.
Shortly after a gang of agents shot and killed the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse in Minneapolis on Saturday, agents reportedly rounded up witnesses to the killing and transported them to the nearby Whipple Building, where they were detained for several hours, according to a review of court affidavits by CBS News.
Agents also ordered local police to leave the scene of the shooting, but the order was ignored by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, who instructed local officers to preserve the crime scene.
US District Judge Eric Tostrud swiftly issued an order barring federal agents from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting, including evidence “removed from the scene” or “taken into [the federal government’s] exclusive custody.”
It came following a request from Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), who said his officers had been turned away by agents with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Trump administration has already preemptively declared that agents’ shooting of Pretti was justifiable, as it has done in at least 16 DHS shooting cases, according to an investigation published Tuesday by the Washington Post.
Members of the administration have stated that Pretti was a "domestic terrorist" and an "assassin" who intended to "massacre law enforcement," despite ample video evidence of the encounter leading to his death showing nothing of the sort.
On Monday, lawyers for the Department of Justice filed a legal motion, first reported on by the New York Times, opposing Tostrud's order preventing federal agencies from destroying evidence. The agencies, the DOJ argued, “are already obligated by agency policy to preserve the evidence at issue.”
"While it’s not uncommon for the Trump administration to oppose judges’ orders against it, this case seems particularly unnecessary—and suspicious," wrote Edith Olmsted in the New Republic.
Radley Balko, a journalist who covers criminal justice, pondered why the administration would need to oppose the motion at all if it was making no effort to destroy evidence.
"In a sane country, the DOJ response to a motion asking a judge to stop the government from destroying evidence after federal officers shot and killed a man in broad daylight would be, 'Of course, we wouldn't destroy evidence. We agree with this motion,'" he wrote on social media. "That is not what happened."
The motion comes as the administration is shielding many other pieces of information from the public, leaving the series of events to be pieced together through video footage shot by bystanders.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has said multiple agents were recording body camera footage during the shooting, but has announced no plans to release it.
Meanwhile, the administration has refused to publicly name the agents involved in the shooting, with the recently sacked Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino asserting that publicizing their names was tantamount to "doxing."
"Clearly, DHS is taking unprecedented actions to control the investigation into the second broad daylight killing of a civilian by its agents in just the past month," Olmsted wrote. "When coupled with Customs and Border Patrol’s efforts to shield its officers from accountability, and Trump officials’ desperation to change the subject, it seems we may be looking at a bona fide cover-up."
