WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department has moved to drop charges against two men charged with assaulting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January after an officer shot a Venezuelan immigrant, a court document showed on Thursday.
The top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, asked a judge to dismiss the charges, writing that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations.” Rosen sought the dismissal with prejudice, which means the charges cannot be reintroduced.
The shooting that wounded the Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, came during President Donald Trump’s widely condemned surge of immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Trump’s immigration crackdown, said in January officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop on Sosa-Celis when he sped away, crashed his car and fled on foot.
DHS said at the time that Sosa-Celis and two other men hit an ICE officer who pursued him with a snow shovel and broom handle, prompting the shooting.
