Another death, deeper divisions

Leaders in Minnesota and Democrats across the United States are demanding that federal immigration officers leave the state, after a Border Patrol agent fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday.

The shooting set off further clashes with protesters in a city already shaken by another shooting death of US citizen Renee Good weeks earlier.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz posed a question directly to President Donald Trump during a news briefing on Sunday, asking, "What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state?"

The Trump administration has faced intensifying pressure over its mass immigration crackdown, particularly after federal agents shot and killed Pretti on Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway.

Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton issued pointed calls on Sunday for people to stand up and defend their values after the killing.

Obama said in a statement that Pretti's shooting should be a "wakeup call" that core US values "are increasingly under assault".

He urged the Trump administration to work with city and state officials to "avert more chaos and achieve legitimate law enforcement goals".

Hours later, Clinton delivered a fierce indictment of the current administration, saying peaceful protesters "have been arrested, beaten, teargassed, and most searingly, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed".

"All of this is unacceptable," he said in a statement as he urged people to "stand up, speak out".

At a news conference on Saturday, Walz demanded that state authorities lead the investigation.

"I have a strong statement for our federal government: Minnesota's justice system will have the last word on this," he said.

"It must have the last word. As I told the White House in no uncertain terms this morning, the federal government cannot be trusted to lead this investigation. The state will handle it. Period."

However, Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the US Department of Homeland Security denied his agents access to the scene after the shooting.

"We had a signed warrant and we were still denied access," he said.

Joint investigations involving federal and state agencies often involve a degree of tension, said J. Thomas Manger, the former chief of the US Capitol Police, who previously led two large police departments in suburban Washington.

"But it would always be a very cooperative effort where people communicate," Manger, who has been involved in many use-of-force investigations, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

Contradicting accounts

Trump administration officials claimed that Pretti had intended to harm the federal agents — as they did after Good's death — pointing to a pistol they said was discovered on him.

"The victims are Border Patrol agents," Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, told CNN's State of the Union program.

That official line, echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other members of the administration, drew outrage from local leaders and law enforcement and Democrats in the Congress, who pointed to the bystander videos that show all Pretti had in his hands was a cellphone before agents grappled him to the ground and ultimately shot him at close range.

"It's very baked into the culture of American policing to not criticize other law enforcement agencies," said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and use-of-force expert who testified for prosecutors in the trial of the Minneapolis officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.

"But behind the scenes, there is nothing but professional scorn for the way that DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) is handling the aftermath of these incidents," Stoughton said.

Floyd, a black man, died while being arrested in Minneapolis in 2020. His death inspired months of protest against police brutality and racism.

Vanita Gupta, who served as associate attorney-general in the Joe Biden administration, said the US is now in an "incredibly dangerous place".

"What you have now is a sense that immigration agents are able to operate with impunity because there is no accountability and no prospect of accountability for these horrific acts," Gupta was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

Agencies contributed to this story.

shiguang@chinadailyusa.com