Just hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to cause maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later suggest that the Minnesota governor had “asked Pretti to show up and continue resisting.”
Multiple videos from the scene immediately undermined those claims, and in the days since there have been no indications that Pretti threatened or planned to harm authorities.
Several high-profile use-of-force incidents and arrests involving federal immigration agents have involved a similar cycle: strident statements from Trump administration officials, which were soon contradicted by videos or other evidence. Some law enforcement experts believe the repeated falsehoods are hurting federal authorities both before the public and in court.
Los Angeles' top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, has put five defendants on trial for assaulting officers, and his office has lost every case. Court records and a Times investigation show that grand juries in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles have repeatedly rejected criminal submissions from prosecutors in similar cases.
Despite repeated court rebukes, administration officials have continued to push for criminal charges against people at protest sites, including the controversial arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday.
“When the top federal law enforcement leaders in the country promote false narratives like this, the public questions everything the government says going forward,” said Peter Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman in Washington who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. “You see that in how judges react. You see that in how grand juries react. You see that in how jurors react. That trust that has been built over generations is gone.”
Concerns about credibility were raised in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom in September, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino was the key witness in the assault trial of Brayan Ramos-Brito, accused of punching a Border Patrol agent during protests against immigration raids last summer. Video from the scene did not clearly capture the alleged attack, and Bovino was the only Border Patrol official who testified as an eyewitness.
Under questioning by federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega, Bovino initially denied being disciplined by the Border Patrol for calling undocumented immigrants “scum, filth and garbage,” but later admitted that he had received a reprimand. The jury returned an acquittal after deliberating for about an hour. A juror who spoke to The Times outside court said Bovino's testimony detailing his account of the alleged assault “had no impact” on his decision.
Last year, a Chicago judge ruled that Bovino had “lied” in a deposition in a lawsuit about how officers used force against protesters and journalists.
Spokespeople for Essayli and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Essayli prosecutors have seen four additional cases involving allegations of assault on a federal officer that ended in acquittals, a nearly unheard of losing streak. A Pew study found that less than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted across the United States in 2022.
“The credibility of the prosecutor's office and the credibility of the law enforcement officers who testify is key,” said Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg. “That's especially true when the only witness to an event is a law enforcement officer.”
Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said federal law enforcement officials have a responsibility to be “the mature, responsible actor in the room” and remain as apolitical as possible. While he is a strong supporter of President Trump's immigration agenda and said the Biden administration shares some of the blame for politicizing federal law enforcement, Noem's handling of Pretti's murder was problematic.
“What he said really doesn't bear out in terms of what the available facts tell us,” Fleischman said. “I think it undermines the credibility of the judicial system.”
Fleischman added that he feared some of the administration's recent mistakes could affect approval of the platform that twice put Trump in the White House.
“One of the main reasons I've been so enthusiastic about this president has been his stance on immigration issues,” he said. “When you see unforced errors by the home team reduce public support for the president's immigration agenda, it's demoralizing.”
Another senior Trump adviser, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, also used harsh rhetoric after the Minnesota shooting, calling Pretti a “murderer.”
Responding to a Times reporter on
Accounts from inside the Los Angeles courtrooms paint a different picture.
Carol Williams, jury foreman in the most recent assault trial that federal prosecutors lost in Los Angeles, said people she worked with stayed away from conversations about the news or ICE raids.
“We didn't talk about the protests in Los Angeles or the protests that happened in Minnesota or anything like that,” Williams said. “I'm sure people probably keep up with the news, but in terms of bringing that to the jury room, we didn't do that.”
Last year, Essayli and Tricia McLaughlin, the chief spokeswoman for Homeland Security, accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming immigration agents with his vehicle in South Los Angeles, prompting one agent to open fire. However, a video made public after assault charges were dismissed last year does not show the vehicle moving when the ICE agent opens fire, wounding Parias and a deputy U.S. marshal.
After being presented with the body camera video, McLaughlin reiterated the claim that Parias used his vehicle as a weapon and said the officers “followed their training and fired defensive shots.”
McLaughlin also called Keith Porter Jr., a Los Angeles man shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Northridge on New Year's Eve, an “active shooter” in initial media comments on the case, using a term that generally refers to a gunman attempting to kill multiple people.
Los Angeles police said no one else was hurt at the scene and did not use the term “active shooter” in statements about the case.
Porter's family and defenders have argued that the force was not justified. They said Porter was shooting a gun into the air to celebrate the new year, behavior that is illegal and public officials advise against as dangerous.
An attorney for the officer, Brian Palacios, has said there is evidence that Porter shot the officer.
Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman, said the Trump administration has broken with years of cautious rules around press statements designed to protect the credibility of federal law enforcement.
“That trust is eroded when they rush to push narratives before real investigations are conducted,” he said.
In one case, Homeland Security officials' refusal to back down may lead to a video being made public that further undermines their narrative.
Last October, Marimar Martínez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago who alleged that she was following him in a car and interfering with an operation. In a statement, McLaughlin accused Martinez of ramming a police vehicle while armed with a “semi-automatic weapon.”
Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped the charges, but McLaughlin and others continued to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist.” As a result, Martinez filed a motion to revoke a protective order that kept videos of the incident and other evidence hidden.
“While the United States voluntarily dismissed its formal prosecution against her with prejudice…government officials continue to prosecute Ms. Martínez's character in the court of public opinion,” the motion said.
