Minneapolis shooting: Federal agents’ actions raise serious questions from the start, say experts

MINNEAPOLIS – For experts in police training and use of force, the trouble began well before the first shot was fired.

In the chaotic moments leading up to

the killing of Mr Alex Pretti

in Minneapolis on Jan 24, federal immigration agents had already acted in ways that raised serious questions among law enforcement experts, former police officers and legal analysts.

Videos show the agents shoving bystanders and showering them with pepper spray at close range.

Experts said their directives appeared to be muddled, and they passed up opportunities to de-escalate the situation – missteps and breaks with protocol that culminated in a barrage of gunfire.

It was the second time in January that immigration officers had shot and killed someone in the city.

A thorough investigation will be necessary to fully understand the latest episode, but the use of deadly force is justified only when there is an immediate, lethal threat to the safety of officers or others, said six policing experts interviewed by The New York Times.

Analysts similarly scrutinised the actions of Mr Jonathan Ross, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who

killed Ms Renee Good on Jan 7

.

They questioned Mr Ross’ decision to stand in front of Ms Good’s car, and they said his profane remarks about Ms Good, captured on video after the shooting, could be used in a legal case against him, though such a prosecution would face several hurdles.

The shootings, along with mounting examples of federal agents’ combative conduct, point to a concerning pattern of behaviour, said Mr Marc Brown, a long-time police officer and former instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers.

“It’s disturbing,” said Mr Brown, who taught classes on defensive tactics and use of force to federal agents, including those from ICE. “Overall, I think they need to reassess and regroup in terms of what they’re actually doing and what the mission is.”

On Jan 24, the Trump administration immediately sought to justify the shooting of Mr Pretti and defended the agents, whose identities have not been released. Administration officials have also blamed Democratic leaders and activists for interfering in immigration enforcement operations.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed that Mr Pretti, who had a permit to carry a firearm, “approached” agents with a handgun and then “violently resisted”. The agency said “defensive shots” were fired.

But footage of the agents pinning down Mr Pretti and shooting him multiple times has set off a new wave of outrage and has drawn bipartisan condemnation across the country. Videos of the encounter show that Mr Pretti never drew his weapon and had been disarmed when the first agent fired.

It is not clear how or when Mr Pretti’s interaction with federal agents started that morning, but footage analysed by the Times appears to show him filming an immigration operation at about 9am local time.

Soon after, an agent pushing people away from a DHS vehicle shoved a nearby onlooker onto the snowy roadside.

Mr Seth Stoughton, who has worked as a police officer and a state investigator, and now specialises in use-of-force cases, questioned why the agent would have so forcefully initiated contact with someone who was not apparently impeding his work.

“The shift in focus might be a tactical misstep,” Mr Stoughton said.

From there, the videos show, Mr Pretti steps between an agent and the onlookers. The agent then projects pepper spray into Mr Pretti’s face repeatedly and pulls him to the ground from behind while more agents jump into the fray. One of them strikes Mr Pretti in the face with a pepper spray canister multiple times.

In sworn testimony, a witness said Mr Pretti appeared to be trying to help the bystanders and was not threatening or resisting the agents.

About eight seconds after he is brought to his knees, agents begin to yell that Mr Pretti has a gun. This is a standard and useful tactic, Mr Stoughton said, but it is key that officers continue communicating about where the weapon is, what the subject is doing with it and whether the person been disarmed. It is not clear if the agents did that in this case.

“Officers interact with armed community members all the time,” Mr Stoughton said. “It’s just utterly ridiculous to suggest that just because someone has a weapon on them, that that justifies the use of deadly force.”

As several agents struggle with Mr Pretti on the ground, videos show, another agent approaches the knot empty-handed, appears to pull a gun from near Mr Pretti’s hip and walks away with it from the melee.

At about the same time, an agent standing above Mr Pretti unholsters his own gun and points it at Mr Pretti’s back. About one second after Mr Pretti’s gun is secured, the agent fires.

“A big question is going to be about whether the officers, and particularly the shooting agents, should have been aware that Mr Pretti had been disarmed,” Mr Stoughton said. “A lot is going to turn on the perceptions of the officers who fired.”

Mr Brown, the former federal law enforcement training instructor, said once officers have a subject pinned and under control, their next priority should be getting him handcuffed.

“If the weapon was taken, why were the shots fired?” Mr Brown asked.

After the first agent fires, at least one other joins in, shooting at Mr Pretti as he lies motionless on the ground. In a span of five seconds, they appear to have discharged at least 10 shots.

In the aftermath, videos show the agents kneeling beside Mr Pretti and appearing to search him.

“Where is the gun?” someone asks. Another agent replies that he has recovered it.

An agent then begins administering medical aid, which is typically an officer’s first priority after a scene is secured, based on standard law enforcement practices. The agent can be heard identifying himself as a medic and asking for scissors to cut away Mr Pretti’s clothing before providing care.

The agents’ actions during their encounter with Mr Pretti point to a lack of proper training for the types of operations they are being asked to carry out, said Mr Ed Obayashi, a California deputy sheriff and lawyer who advises agencies on use-of-force policies and cases.

“Their training is geared towards immigration enforcement, and it doesn’t encompass the wide-ranging law enforcement street contact training that police officers and deputy sheriffs go through,” Mr Obayashi said.

Every expert interviewed cautioned that the videos and witness statements that have emerged so far offer a limited view of the episode.

If Mr Pretti or another bystander had been disobeying orders, for example, it could have changed the calculus of the agents, said Professor Kenneth Quick, a former precinct commander at the New York Police Department and who teaches criminal justice at DeSales University.

“We’re looking at the scene after the fact, in a vacuum, not necessarily with all the other factors going on,” Prof Quick said. “That’s where I think a lot of things get cloudy because once people are not obeying what the law enforcement on scene is telling them, that’s increasing the officers’ threat perspective.”

So far, the Trump administration has declined to cooperate with state and local officials, who have pushed to jointly investigate the killings of Mr Pretti and Ms Good.

US Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche said the federal government would conduct an inquiry into Mr Pretti’s case, but offered scant details about what it would entail.

Typically, after officers use deadly force, regardless of the circumstance, they are placed on administrative leave while the incident is reviewed, Mr Obayashi said.

Mr Stoughton said many officers across the law enforcement profession were unhappy with the way federal agents had conducted themselves in Minneapolis and other cities.

“It might be law enforcement of a particular type,” he said, “but it is not policing as it should be.” NYTIMES