Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Minnesota prosecutor updates Pretti & Good ICE shooting investigations 'We're making progress'

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Minnesota prosecutor updates Pretti & Good ICE shooting investigations 'We're making progress' · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I was not shocked that he helped somebody. My shock
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: is that he was murdered and no one has given
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: us the complete truth or anyone has been held accountable.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And it's been seven months.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: There was more effort in vilifying him than pursuing justice.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: A kid who is out observing... Something that should not
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: be happening in this world today, in the United States. Why?
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  Speaker 1: What did he do to deserve to be murdered? To
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: left cold, on the ground, dead? My child. What did
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: he do?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It's a damn good question. And that is the family
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: of Alex Preddy demanding answers and accountability. Seven months. after
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the 37-year-old was fatally shot by Customs and Border Protection
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  Speaker 2: agents in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown, all seen on camera.
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  Speaker 2: That shooting came just over two weeks after Renee Good
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  Speaker 2: was also fatally shot by federal immigration officers in Minnesota.
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  Speaker 2: So far, no criminal charges have been filed in the killings,
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  Speaker 2: but state and federal authorities are examining the incident. Federal
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: officials initially denied state investigators access to the shooting scenes.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and questioned whether state prosecutors had jurisdiction over federal officers.
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  Speaker 2: But after months of delay, federal prosecutors turned over crucial evidence,
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  Speaker 2: including body camera footage, statements, and even Renee Good's damaged
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: SUV that they had taken away to Hennepin County Attorney's
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Mary Moriarty's office in July. And Hennepin County Attorney Mary
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  Speaker 2: Moriarty joins us now. Thank you very much for coming
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: on the show. We very much want to follow these
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: investigations that you are trying to conduct. I'm just first
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: back up. Is that unusual for the state to not
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  Speaker 2: have access to the type of evidence that I just listed?
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  Speaker 2: And now that you have it, are these cases moving
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: forward in any significant way?
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  Speaker 3: First of all, my condolences to the Preti and good families.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Nothing justifies the way that they were treated and continue
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: to be treated throughout this ordeal for them. And yes,
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  Speaker 3: it's highly unusual. From the beginning, particularly of the Preti case,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: that happened on a Saturday morning. We had a prosecutor
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  Speaker 3: down at the scene. Our state local agency, the BCA,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: was also down there. And they were actually denied access
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  Speaker 3: to the scene, which is their job, to go process
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the scene. We actually got a search warrant signed by
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  Speaker 3: a judge, and the federal government denied their access to it.
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  Speaker 3: And for a very long time, the federal government denied
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  Speaker 3: our access to any of the evidence, to the point
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  Speaker 3: where we had to file a lawsuit in Washington, D.C.,
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  Speaker 3: to ask a judge to order them to give us
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  Speaker 3: the evidence in those cases. We are making progress, however,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: and we did get a substantial amount of evidence from
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: the U.S. Attorney's Office here. I would characterize that more
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: as trying to get back to the normal relationships we
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: have here, which is really working together, not necessarily a
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: directive from the administration or the federal government. So we
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  Speaker 3: are making progress. We're not stalled out here. We have
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  Speaker 3: a team of very experienced homicide prosecutors here. working on
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: both the good and pretty cases, and we are making
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: substantial progress.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have all the evidence that was taken away?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: We have a lot of it. And I want to
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  Speaker 3: say to people, as a prosecutor, we normally, in any case,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: probably don't have every piece of evidence we wish there were.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes that includes video. Sometimes it includes physical evidence. For
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  Speaker 3: us and any prosecutor... The issue is always, given what
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  Speaker 3: we have, is that enough to make a decision? And
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  Speaker 3: I believe at this point we do have enough evidence
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  Speaker 3: to make a decision. As I said, we've got a
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: substantial amount of evidence from the U.S. Attorney's Office. We
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  Speaker 3: only knew, probably as you did, from the media that
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: the agents who interacted with Alex Preti were wearing body cameras. Um,
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  Speaker 3: and that was confirmed they were. And so there's a
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: substantial amount of video for our team to go through. Um,
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  Speaker 3: but I believe we have enough evidence to be able
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  Speaker 3: to at some point here, make a decision about whether
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  Speaker 3: charging is appropriate.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And, and that is what you're looking at at this point, um,
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  Speaker 2: charges in both cases.
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  Speaker 3: Well, our job as prosecutors is this, uh, if, um,
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  Speaker 3: a police officer in Minnesota shot and killed someone or
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  Speaker 3: just shot somebody. The law here is that the Bureau
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: of Criminal Apprehension would do an investigation. They would give
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: the investigation to the prosecutor in the county in which
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: that happened. So I am the Hennepin County attorney. Once
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  Speaker 3: we get the investigation, we make a decision. That decision is,
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  Speaker 3: is there enough evidence to prosecute criminal charges with proof
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  Speaker 3: beyond a reasonable doubt or not? So we either move
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  Speaker 3: forward with charges or we decline. But here's what's really
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  Speaker 3: important here. We have tried to be as transparent as possible.
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  Speaker 3: And any time anything like this has happened in Minnesota
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  Speaker 3: with local law enforcement, for instance, and I go back
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  Speaker 3: to what the Pretty family here said, those names of
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  Speaker 3: law enforcement are released pretty early. And the decision that
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: is made by a prosecutor's office, and this is what
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  Speaker 3: we intend to do, would be very transparent. We will
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  Speaker 3: talk about what our decision is, and we will be
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  Speaker 3: very transparent about why. And the BCA always posts the investigation.
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  Speaker 3: So a key piece of what's missing here is transparency
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  Speaker 3: by the federal government. I would expect that every community
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  Speaker 3: member wants their government to be transparent and do an
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  Speaker 3: impartial and complete investigation of Anytime any federal agent or
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  Speaker 3: any agent of the government takes the life of one
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: of its community members. And that simply hasn't happened here
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: on the federal government's part. And in fact, because they
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: came out right away and were referring to Renee Good
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  Speaker 3: and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists, it's a little hard
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  Speaker 3: for members of the community here and no doubt nationwide
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  Speaker 3: to trust that actually that will happen. But I can
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  Speaker 3: guarantee people we are doing that investigation. And at some
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  Speaker 3: point here, we will make a decision.
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  Speaker 4: So is it your sense, Ms. Moriarty, and thanks for
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: joining us this morning, that the federal government, given how
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  Speaker 4: long it's taken for you to get this evidence, is
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  Speaker 4: it your sense that the federal government is shielding these
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: officers or attempting to shield these officers from prosecution?
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  Speaker 3: I would differentiate between the local U.S. Attorney's Office and
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  Speaker 3: the staff people here from the main Department of Justice
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: in this administration for years. And in fact, as you know,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: we had a political assassination here yesterday. Both our BCA
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: and the FBI did a joint investigation. They shared the
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: evidence with the U.S. Attorney's Office and our office. Both
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  Speaker 3: of our offices chose to charge. The U.S. Attorney's Office
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  Speaker 3: settled that case not too long ago. That is the
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: way it's supposed to work. And from the day that
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Rene Good was shot, I was on the phone with
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  Speaker 3: the U.S. Attorney's Office, the BCA, the FBI. Everybody was
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: on the phone. And we all agreed this would be
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: the same. It would be a joint investigation. And then
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: the BCA got kicked out of the case. Our understanding
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: is that was a directive from the administration. Ever since then,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: we have all been trying to get back to what's
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: normal here, what's right here. And so I think the
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: sharing of evidence was really part of an attempt to
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: get back to normalizing those relationships. I have no inside
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: knowledge about what the administration thought. We still have our
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: lawsuit pending, by the way, to try to get all
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: of the evidence in the good case, pretty and also
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Julio Sosa Solis to make sure that we have absolutely
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: everything and cooperation of federal witnesses should we need that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: I do note on the list of evidence that you've
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: now received police body camera footage. I think there was
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: some question about whether ICE agents are even wearing body cameras.
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  Speaker 4: The one agent we saw in the publicly available video
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  Speaker 4: in the Rene Good case had a phone in his
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  Speaker 4: hand as if he was recording it himself.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: So were the.
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  Speaker 4: Agents who fired the shots wearing body cameras?
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  Speaker 3: In the Pretty case, some were. So I can tell
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  Speaker 3: you that we have reviewed that body camera. That was
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: one of the things that we didn't have. And so
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  Speaker 3: we were trying to assess, which is not a position
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  Speaker 3: we're usually in, what might that evidence show? You know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: what if? And we now have that evidence. And so
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  Speaker 3: that's been extremely helpful. We have multiple views of what
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: happened here.
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  Speaker 2: Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, thank you very much for
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: what you're doing and thank you for coming on the
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  Speaker 2: show this morning. We'll be following this. Thanks very much.