Updated

Updated · The Independent · Sep 3

DOJ Limits ICE Agent Castro to False-Statement Charge in 24-Year-Old Venezuelan's Shooting

Updated

Updated · The Independent · Sep 3

DOJ Limits ICE Agent Castro to False-Statement Charge in 24-Year-Old Venezuelan's Shooting

Q: What is the real reason a federal prosecutor was fired while investigating civil rights violations in this controversial Minneapolis shooting?

The real reason has not been publicly established. What is documented is that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Evans told lawyers for the victims that senior Justice Department officials and the U.S. attorney’s office overrode his push to bring a more serious civil-rights charge against ICE officer Christian Castro and limited the case to false-statements charges. ProPublica reported that Evans described himself as objecting “in the strongest possible terms.” After that became public, a source familiar with the investigation said Evans was fired and is now under investigation. That source disputed Evans’ account that Washington had definitively blocked civil-rights charges, saying the civil-rights probe is still active and that no final charging decision has been made. So the available evidence supports this much: Evans’ firing came after he disclosed internal charging disputes in a highly sensitive case. But officials have not publicly said whether he was fired for that disclosure itself, for how he handled the matter, or for some separate issue tied to the investigation now underway. In short, the timing strongly suggests his dismissal is connected to his unusually candid disclosure about internal DOJ deliberations, but any more specific motive remains unconfirmed by public records or official statements.

3 articles · Updated · The Independent · Sep 3

Federal prosecutors are moving to charge ICE officer Christian Castro only with making false statements after he allegedly shot 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis and lied about being attacked.
ProPublica reported Trump Justice Department officials blocked a harsher civil-rights charge, despite objections from prosecutors who said Castro should face deprivation-of-rights counts carrying steeper penalties.
January 14 video and eyewitness accounts undercut Castro's claim that Sosa-Celis and another man attacked him with a broom handle and snow shovel before he fired, prompting the Justice Department to drop the men's cases in February.
Castro, 52, is already on leave and separately faces Minnesota felony charges including assault with a dangerous weapon; he was arrested in Texas in May and remains tied up in an extradition fight.
The case grew out of Operation Metro Surge, a Minneapolis immigration crackdown in which federal agents shot at least three people, including two who were killed, intensifying scrutiny of accountability under Trump's deportation push.