The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced Monday that it was filing charges against 52-year-old ICE agent Christian Castro in connection with the January shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis.
By Catholics for Catholics
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office of the State of Minnesota charged a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in the shooting and wounding of a Venezuelan man in Minnesota earlier this year.
The County Attorney’s Office announced Monday that it was filing charges against 52-year-old ICE agent Christian Castro in connection with the January shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis, according to a story by The Christian Post.
The charges against Castro include four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.
The County Attorney’s office alleges that Castro fired his weapon through the front door of a home, despite knowing that people, including Sosa-Celis, had just hurled inside. The bullet perforated the door and hit Sosa-Celis in the leg.
“Castro fired his weapon through the front door of the home while standing alone in the front yard, under no physical threat or duress, and knowing there were people who had just run inside,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in the announcement.
“Mr. Castro is an ICE agent. But his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota.”
The shooting happened on Jan. 14, right in the middle of a big contingent of ICE teams that raided Minnesota, as part of an extensive operation to deport a large number of undocumented immigrants.
Still, in a press release issued at the time, the Department of Homeland Security asserted that Sosa-Celis assaulted Castro and that the agent acted in self-defense when he fired the shot.
At the time, Sosa-Celis was arrested along with Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma. All three are Venezuelan nationals who supposedly entered the United States illegally.
“What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the January statement.
“Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot.”
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