An ICE agent whose name was long kept from the public is now facing felony charges in a Minnesota shooting that helped ignite protests over federal immigration tactics. State prosecutors on Monday charged 52-year-old Christian Castro with four counts of second-degree assault, a felony, and one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime in connection with the January wounding of Venezuelan immigrant Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis, the New York Times reports. Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg on Jan. 14 after a chase involving two federal agents whose identities were not shared with state investigators for months, hampering the probe.
Sosa-Celis was initially charged with assaulting an officer, but charges against him and another man were dropped after a prosecutor reviewed a video that sharply contradicted the agents' account of events. The Hennepin County Attorney's Office said Monday that Castro fired through the front door of a duplex, hitting Sosa-Celis while children were in the home, MPR News reports. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Castro was not under physical threat when he fired.
The day after the shooting, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed the agent fired a "defensive shot " after he "was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms." Sosa-Celis was one of three people shot by federal agents in Minnesota during the winter campaign dubbed Operation Metro Surge, the Times reports. Two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed in separate encounters.
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