Minnesota investigators are gathering evidence in the January shooting of a Venezuelan man by a federal immigration agent, according to court documents.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) has reviewed nearby surveillance camera video that captured the lead-up to the Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in north Minneapolis. The video shows a man at the home dropping a shovel in the yard before immigration officers arrive pursuing another man, which seems to contradict initial government claims that the men attacked federal officers with a shovel and broomstick.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially labeled Sosa-Celis and two other Venezuelan men at the scene “attempted murderers,” but the government has since dropped criminal charges against them and began to investigate the two agents at the scene for potentially lying under oath.
Exactly what prompted federal charges to be dropped remains unclear. U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice, meaning the government can’t re-file the same charges against the men at a later date. He wrote that “newly discovered evidence” was “materially inconsistent with the allegations” made against the two men in a criminal complaint and at a January hearing. Federal authorities have not said what led them to question the agents’ accounts of what happened that evening.
“Whatever newly discovered evidence the government got, it was so inconsistent with the allegations in the complaint that the complaint had to be dismissed with prejudice. They had to dismiss,” Sosa-Celis’ attorney, Robin Wolpert, told Sahan Journal.
BCA agents collected a bullet casing, a door with a bullet hole and other physical evidence from the north Minneapolis duplex where an ICE agent shot Sosa-Celis, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.
Sosa-Celis, 24, was shot through the leg after closing the door on an ICE agent pursuing his friend, Alfredo Aljorna. Federal prosecutors dropped criminal charges on Feb. 12 that accused the men of using a broom and snow shovel to assault the ICE agent who shot Sosa-Celis.
Wolpert said she’s grateful the government moved to drop the charges after seeing new evidence, but said her client and others in the home endured great hardship.
“It is a grave injustice,” Wolpert said. “It is a 180-degree turn, but a lot of suffering happened in between.”
The agent who shot Sosa-Celis has not been publicly identified.
Video shows man dropping shovel before struggle with ICE
The BCA reviewed surveillance video of the incident collected from a nearby Minneapolis Police Department traffic camera.
According to the search warrant affidavit: The footage shows a man, presumably Sosa-Celis, on the porch of the home involved in the shooting. The man is seen in the video talking on the phone. A second man, presumably Aljorna, then arrives crashing his car into a snowbank as he is being pursued by ICE agents. The man on the porch is holding a shovel, but throws it to the ground before Aljorna flees on foot toward the house.
The affidavit did not name Sosa-Celis or Aljorna, but other court documents and eyewitness accounts say Sosa-Celis was at home and Aljorna was being chased in his car by ICE agents.
The footage shows Aljorna running toward the house and appearing to slip on the ice before an agent tackles him on the ground. A struggle ensues between the agent and the man in the snow. A second man is seen attempting to help the man fleeing the officer. The two men then get up and flee into the home.
The footage has no audio and does not clearly show when the gunshot was fired, according to the affidavit.
The BCA served two search warrants at the residence, first collecting a spent bullet shell casing in the snow and a white broom. The BCA returned to collect the entire front door for testing and a second broom.
A BCA spokesperson told Sahan Journal the agency is continuing its investigation into the shooting of Sosa-Celis, and said the federal government continues to not cooperate with state law enforcement. The BCA is asking people with information about the shooting to contact state investigators.
A traumatic event
The shooting came at the height of Operation Metro Surge, and was emblematic of the chaos, violence and blunders associated with the federal immigration enforcement campaign.
Agents initially began chasing Aljorna believing he was a different man who had sold Aljorna his vehicle on Facebook Marketplace, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent submitted in federal court. Atop of shooting Sosa-Celis, who was unarmed, agents threw tear gas into the home, which was occupied by two young children and several adults.
Five adults were arrested, including Gabriel Hernandez Ledezma, who lived in a separate unit of the duplex, and two mothers who were separated from their children. The detained adults, who each spent at least two weeks in federal detention, won habeas petitions granting their release from federal custody.
Protesters who descended on the shooting scene were met with an intense barrage of tear gas and other less-lethal munitions, Sahan Journal reporters observed. A family with six children heading home from a youth basketball game had a tear gas canister explode under their car, causing a six-month old to lose consciousness and the family to be hospitalized.
When DHS first publicly addressed the shooting in January, they claimed Sosa-Celis, not Aljorna, was driving the car.
They accused Hernandez Ledezma of participating in the alleged assault of the ICE agent. Hernandez Ledzema was never charged, but spent more than three weeks in multiple Texas detention centers before a judge ordered his release, according to his lawyers with Hennepin County Adult Representation Services.
Immigration agents forcibly knocked down Hernandez Ledezma’s door as they moved to arrest people in the upstairs unit, according to court documents. Hernandez Ledzema, who is also from Venezuela, had Temporary Protected Status and no pending issues before immigration court.
“Gabriel’s life has been turned upside down by ICE’s actions in Minnesota,” Jeanette Boerner, director of Adult Representation Services, said in a statement to Sahan Journal. “The district court order finding his detention unlawful and ordering his release, along with the decision to dismiss charges against his neighbors, vindicates the unjustness of his arrest, detention, and the deliberate smearing of his name and broadcasting of his photo along with unfounded allegations, but it doesn’t give him back the weeks he spent in detention.
“We look forward to further investigation into this matter and hope that those responsible face consequences.”
Hennepin County Adult Representation Services provides free legal support for low-income county residents in civil matters; it’s separate from the county attorney’s office.
A BCA agent filed a Jan. 30 declaration in Hernandez Ledezma’s habeas petition that said he was one of three key witnesses to the shooting, and that state detectives had been unable to interview them because they were detained by immigration officials.
Sosa-Celis and his family and friends endured a series of traumatic events that night and in the weeks after — being shot; being detained; having friends, family members and witnesses detained; being accused of a crime and having their photos blasted over the news; and being labeled violent criminals by government officials, Wolpert said.
She thinks of the events of Jan. 14 as two separate traumas. First, ICE agents chased Aljorna, scuffled with him in the snow outside the home and shot Sosa-Celis. Second, agents threw tear gas into the home, stormed it and pointed guns at everyone inside and arrested them.
“It’s something that would shake anyone to the core,” Wolpert said.
Sahan Journal visited the home on Feb. 4, after boards nailed to the doorframe in the aftermath of the shooting had been removed. A bullet hole was located midway up the door.
“Someone shot through a door in an occupied house,” Wolpert said.
The door has since been replaced.
