Federal agents involved in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti placed on administrative leave – live | Minnesota ICE shootings
Federal agents involved in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti placed on administrative leave
The federal agents involved in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minnesota over the weekend have been placed on administrative leave, the Guardian has learned.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to the Guardian: “The two officers involved are on administrative leave. This is standard protocol.”
Key events
An image of Donald Trump holding hands with musician Nicki Minaj earlier today shows the president using concealer to cover something on his hand.
Minaj made a short appearance alongside the president ealier, after the president announced “Trump Accounts”, individual investment accounts for US children that will take effect in July as part of Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
As my colleague, Carter Sherman reported, Minaj’s “comments mostly focused on how people are ‘bullying’ Trump, with whom Minaj briefly held hands.”
A close-up photograph of the two, shows concealer on Trump’s hand. In recent months, frequent discoloration on the president’s hands has prompted concerns about Trump’s health. The White House has claimed that the bruises are from shaking too many hands.
Schumer calls for Noem and Miller to go and urges Trump to pull ICE out of Minnesota
Chuck Schumer also ramped up the pressure for DHS secretary Kristi Noem and top Trump aide Stephen Miller to go, as he repeated calls for the president to pull ICE agents out of Minnesota.
He wrote on X:
It’s outrageous that Kristi Noem still has a job in the administration after federal officers murdered two American citizens in just two weeks. Noem is incompetent and she must go. And her boss Stephen Miller must be removed as well.
In another post, the Senate minority leader urged Trump to follow through on his pledge to “de-escalate” in Minnesota. Schumer said:
President Trump said he wants to de-escalate things in Minneapolis, but he has taken zero meaningful action to make that happen. Yesterday, Border Patrol leadership told their agents that the operations are ‘expected to continue as planned.’ If Trump was serious, he would remove all of ICE from Minnesota now.
Schumer lays out Democrats’ demands to ‘rein in’ ICE as condition to avoid shutdown
The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has laid out Democratic demands for policy changes for ICE, as he pushed for DHS funding to be separated from the other funding bills ahead of a looming shutdown at the end of this week.
Let me be clear: Democrats stand ready today to pass the five bipartisan bills in the Senate, but the DHS bill needs serious work. It’s now on Leader [John] Thune to separate out the DHS bill, just as Speaker [Mike] Johnson did in the House, and start working with Democrats to rein in ice, imposing oversight, accountability and empowering local law enforcement in our communities.
Schumer said this afternoon that federal immigration agents must lose their masks, wear body cameras, observe the same use of force rules as local police, and be subject to tighter rules requiring search warrants and an end to roving patrols, as he outlined conditions that his party is seeking to extend government funding beyond Saturday’s deadline.
Schumer also said in a post on X:
The Senate is scheduled to take the first procedural vote on a funding package including DHS funding tomorrow.
Let me be clear: Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, the DHS funding bill won’t have the votes to pass the Senate.
He told CNN:
Our number one goal is — these are three policy areas we think must be done. What we want to do is negotiate with the Republicans and come up with a proposal that, again, reins in ice and ends the violence.
Threat of US-Iran war escalates as Trump warns time running out for deal
Patrick Wintour and Andrew Roth
The threat of war between the US and Iran appeared to loom closer after Donald Trump told Tehran that time was running out and a huge US armada was moving quickly towards the country “with great power, enthusiasm and purpose”.
Writing on social media, the US president said today that the fleet headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was larger than the one sent to Venezuela before the removal of Nicolás Maduro earlier this month and was “prepared to rapidly fulfill its missions with speed and violence if necessary”.
Trump said:
Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!
As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.
It was the starkest indication yet from Trump that he intends to mount some kind of military strike imminently if Iran refuses to negotiate a deal on the future of its nuclear programme. The post also reflects a remarkable shift in the White House’s stated rationale for sending a carrier strike group to the region, moving away from outrage over the death of protesters to the fate of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Here’s the full report:
Ilhan Omar’s office believes that she was sprayed with apple cider vinegar at her town hall last night in Minneapolis, her spokesperson has told NBC News citing a preliminary report.
CNN earlier reported that forensic examiners had determined with high probability that the substance was apple cider vinegar, citing a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
Lauren Aratani
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after its first rate-setting meeting of the year today, resisting enormous pressure from the White House to lower rates.
A majority of members in the Fed’s federal open market committee (FOMC) voted to pause interest rate cuts after slashing rates three times in the fall. Rates currently sit at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
The Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, to cut rates, with Donald Trump launching personal attacks on Powell and the justice department opening a criminal investigation into his handling of the refurbishment of the central bank’s offices.
The FOMC has 12 voting members and meets just eight times a year to set interest rates. The stakes of each meeting have been high during Trump’s second term. Though economists say that the Fed’s independence, as the US central bank, is key for economic stability, the president has unabashedly tried to bend the Fed to his economic agenda.
More on this story here:
Rubio declines to rule out further US military action in Venezuela at Senate hearing
Joseph Gedeon
Marco Rubio has declined to rule out future US military action in Venezuela but insisted the Trump administration did not intend to take such steps, as he faced questions from lawmakers over Washington’s unprecedented intervention.
The US secretary of state appeared before the Senate foreign relations committee today to defend the removal of Nicolás Maduro, which has left Venezuela under the control of interim president Delcy Rodríguez while the US seizes and sells its oil.
“The president does reserve the option in self-defense to eliminate that threat,” Rubio said when pressed by Connecticut senator Chris Murphy on whether the administration would use force to compel cooperation on oil sales.
Rubio cited a hypothetical scenario of an Iranian drone factory threatening US forces in the region, but acknowledged that “military action is not good for recovery and transition”.
Rubio had earlier warned in prepared testimony that the US remains “prepared to use force to ensure maximum cooperation if other methods fail”, though he told senators today: “I can tell you right now with full certainty, we are not postured to, nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time.”
Read Joseph’s full report here:
Here is video filmed from inside Ecuador’s consulate in Minneapolis that shows an ICE agent trying to enter the building but being prevented by consulate staffers, according to the country’s foreign ministry.
Reuters confirmed the location as the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis, from the doors, windows, walls, ceiling fixtures and building across the street that are seen in the video, which matched file imagery of the consulate and the area. The date was verified by Ecuador’s ministry of foreign affairs that said an ICE agent attempted to enter the consulate’s facilities in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Also in that ABC News interview last night, Donald Trump called senators Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, “losers” after they became the first Republican lawmakers to call for the DHS secretary, Krisi Noem, to lose her job.
They’re terrible senators. One is gone and the other should be gone. What Murkowski says – she’s always against the Republicans anyway. And Tillis decided to drop out. So you know, he lost his voice once he did that.
Tillis told CNN this morning he was “thrilled” that Trump thinks he’s a loser, adding: “That makes me qualified to be homeland security secretary and senior adviser to the president.”
Federal agents arrest 16 demonstrators in Minnesota, says US attorney general
US attorney general Pam Bondi has said she is “on the ground in Minneapolis” and that federal agents have arrested 16 demonstrators in Minnesota after alleged assaults on federal law enforcement officers.
Those arrested are allegedly, “People who have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents,” she said in a post on X. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law.”
She added that she expects there will be more arrests.
Two officers involved in Pretti shooting have been on leave since Saturday, CBP confirms
And just like that, I have an update from my colleague Anna Betts. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson confirmed:
The two officers involved are on administrative leave and have been since Saturday. This is standard protocol.
Per my last post, that confirmation is directly at odds with Greg Bovino’s assertion on Sunday.
Trump has since withdrawn Bovino from Minneapolis. He told Fox News yesterday: “I don’t think it’s a pullback. It’s a little bit of a change … You know, Bovino is very good, but he’s a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases that’s good, maybe it wasn’t good here.”
As we’ve been reporting, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has confirmed that the two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday have been placed on administrative leave as “is the standard protocol”.
But it’s currently unclear exactly when they were placed on leave. As others have pointed out, federal law enforcement officers who have been involved in a shooting are typically placed on administrative leave for the course of the investigation.
This would directly contradict what border patrol commander Greg Bovino said in the aftermath of the shooting. On Sunday, he told a press conference that “all agents that were involved in that scene are working, not in Minneapolis, but in other locations, that’s for their safety.”
I’ve reached out to CBP for clarification and I’ll update you here when I hear back.
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican, said on Fox News this morning that “no American believes that” Alex Pretti was “assaulting the officers”.
“When people watch that video and the government tells them, ‘Well, he was assaulting the police officers,’ nobody with any objectivity believes that’s what’s happening,” Paul, who represents Kentucky, said.
“No American believes he was assaulting the officers, in fact, the opposite appears to be true,” he added. “So we have to get some rules of the game.”
Saint Paul mayor meets with federal officials, including Tom Homan, ‘to address ongoing ICE surge in Minnesota’
Saint Paul’s mayor, Kaohly Her, said in statement that she met with federal officials, including Tom Homan, on Wednesday “to address the ongoing ICE surge in Minnesota”.
“Today I met with Tom Homan and his team to discuss the ongoing ICE surge in Minnesota” Her said. “I appreciated the opportunity to share with them the harm this surge is having in our city. I reinforced the importance of immigrants and refugees to the fabric of our community. Changing leadership and opening lines of communication with leaders in Minnesota are promising steps toward building trust, ensuring accountability to federal actions, and finding a meaningful resolution to end this surge.
“We look forward to seeing concrete next steps as Mr Homan meets with local officials to de-escalate the situation in Saint Paul,” she added.
Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar and Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley will hold a news conference tonight in South Minneapolis.
A statement from Pressley’s office says:
At the invitation of Congresswoman Omar, Congresswoman Pressley will be in Minneapolis to meet with organizers and community members impacted by ICE’s violent operation in Minnesota, where they have murdered bystanders, terrorized schools and small businesses, and abducted children and parents.
The announcement adds that Omar and Pressley will take a tour of Karmel Mall on Wednesday, a hub holding over 100 small businesses and community organizations, and will “meet with these small business owners and hear firsthand how ICE’s actions are affecting tenants’ ability to sustain their businesses.”
The news conference is set to take place after the visit, it adds.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has reacted to last night’s attack on Representative Ilhan Omar, and said that Omar “showed incredible courage by continuing her town hall after being attacked last night”.
“It is shameful that, instead of condemning the attack, Trump escalated his rhetoric and targeted her once again,” Sanders added. “No more hatred and racism. This country belongs to ALL of us.”
First Appeared on
Source link
