A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent wanted for shooting a Venezuelan man during an immigration crackdown in Minnesota was arrested on Friday in Texas, authorities said. Christian Castro was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime.
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over conduct during the Minnesota operation, known as 'Operation Metro Surge'. He is one of two agents that ICE director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the non-fatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa Celis. Video evidence released last month contradicted the agents' accounts.
Hennepin County prosecutors said the state's bureau of criminal apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas and worked with agents from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office and the Texas Rangers to arrest him. 'Today's arrest is a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr Castro,' said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home's front door and shot Sosa Celis in the thigh after chasing another man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the apartment where both men lived. Both Sosa Celis and Aljorna were legally residing in the US. Federal authorities initially accused Sosa Celis of striking an officer with a broom handle, but surveillance video showed the altercation lasted about 12 seconds, not three minutes, and neither man attacked officers as claimed.
ICE called the charges 'unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt', but the DHS inspector general's office assisted in the arrest. The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis area as part of a national deportation campaign, and tensions rose after the shooting deaths of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers. The county is also investigating those killings and has sued the Trump administration for access to evidence.
