Minnesota officials said in court filings this week that the federal government has again stopped sharing evidence with state investigators probing the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year, the Associated Press reported.
Source: Associated Press via SWOK News
The state sued the Trump administration in March for access to the material, saying it needed the evidence to independently investigate the shootings. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors do not have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they do not trust the federal government to investigate itself, according to the Associated Press.
Sharing resumed in July — then stopped
After negotiations in late June, federal prosecutors and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agreed to share evidence. Federal authorities handed over material including Good's vehicle, the gun used to shoot her, body-worn camera footage and officer statements, and state investigators shared evidence their agents collected, CNN reported.
Source: CNN via KION Central Coast
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty publicly thanked federal prosecutors in July, believing at the time that all the evidence in both cases had been shared or would be soon. Within days of that announcement, federal officials stopped cooperating, and state investigators later discovered that key evidence had not been shared, according to the court filings reported by CNN.
In a sworn statement, Moriarty said U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen told her several times that his office was 'pausing' cooperation, and on September 10 told her evidence sharing would stop indefinitely, citing 'challenges with D.C.' Minnesota officials announced the halt publicly on Thursday and criticised a federal motion to dismiss the state's case, which Moriarty said appears intended to obstruct the state investigations, the Minnesota News Network reported.
The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Minnesota had not publicly explained the pause in the reports available at publication time. The dispute now returns to court, where a judge will decide how much of the federal evidence Minnesota investigators are entitled to see.