Video Shows ICE Agents Lied About Shooting Of Venezuelan Man

It can’t be emphasized enough that police be lying, and, under the Trump administration, immigration police have proven time and time again to be no exception.

In February, we reported that federal charges had been dropped against Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant living in Minneapolis — who was shot in the leg by a federal agent a month earlier— and his roommate, another Venezuelan man named Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna. Immediately after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security began spinning a narrative that claimed federal agents were “conducting a targeted traffic stop in Minneapolis of an illegal alien from Venezuela,” who “fled the scene in his vehicle and crashed into a parked car” and then “fled on foot” before he “began to resist and violently assault the officer” after said officer caught up to him. But, apparently, that complete work of MAGA fiction was based on the accounts of the agents at the scene, which were found to be lies, which is why all charges filed against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were ultimately dropped.

Now, video footage taken from a city-owned camera at a nearby intersection — and obtained by the New York Times via open records request — serves as further proof that the agents were lying, but also calls into question why it took weeks for the federal government to drop its case against the falsely accused.

From the Times:

The video contradicts the agent’s claim that three assailants had beaten him with a shovel and broom for roughly three minutes before he opened fire. Instead, the confrontation depicted in the video lasts about 12 seconds and shows two men struggling with the agent. It shows no sustained attack with a shovel.

The federal government had access to that video within hours of the shooting on Jan. 14, the Minneapolis police chief said. Yet prosecutors did not watch the footage, an official said, until nearly three weeks after they filed charges against the two men.

“Bare due diligence would have shown that the agents were lying,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in a recent interview, shortly after he watched the video for the first time.

The shooting was a rare instance in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration ultimately acknowledged a serious lapse. The agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said after the charges were dropped that two agents had appeared to have lied under oath about the events, adding that they had been placed on leave and could end up facing criminal charges.

There shouldn’t even be a question about whether federal agents who intentionally conjured up fiction to explain away the shooting of a civilian will face criminal charges. Then again, in a perfect justice system, there would also be criminal accountability waiting for the DHS officials who, without even attempting to confirm any facts at all, parroted the agents’ lie as if it were relaying the proven facts of the case.

And now we know that the federal government had immediate access to proof that these agents were lying, and they either refused to look at it, or they looked at it and made a conscious decision to ignore it.

According to the Times, while ICE had spent weeks swarming Minneapolis as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, Sosa-Celis and Aljorna and their partners, Indriany Mendoza-Camacho and Valentina Tiapa, respectively, were sharing a two-bedroom apartment, where they hunkered down inside for most of the day before going to work as food delivery drivers in the evenings, hoping to avoid ICE as they were both undocumented. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were granted temporary protected status in 2024, during the Biden administration, but the Trump administration revoked that status for Venezuelans last year.

“Trump had said he was going to launch the biggest deportation crackdown in history, and we were left thinking we needed to hide,” Sosa-Celis told the Times.

So, according to the government, on Jan. 14, two ICE agents were checking license plate numbers when they ran the tag on the Ford Focus that Aljorna was driving and found that it was registered to another man, who they believed was in the country illegally. And that’s what reportedly led to the chase that led to the shooting that led to the agent lying egregiously about what happened, and the government reflexively backing those lies.

More from the Times:

The agents described being led on a chase for 15 to 20 minutes, saying that Mr. Aljorna “recklessly zigzagged through traffic.” Inside the Ford, Mr. Aljorna had called Ms. Tiapa, telling her that the agents appeared to be trying to provoke a collision.

Minutes later, Mr. Aljorna steered the Ford into a snowbank at the end of the block and took off running toward the duplex, the video obtained by The Times shows.

Mr. Sosa-Celis, who had been standing outside the home holding a snow shovel, tossed the shovel aside, the video shows. An ICE agent is seen chasing Mr. Aljorna on foot.

The video was taken from about half a block away from Mr. Aljorna’s duplex, and it shows a view of the street. That video footage, filmed by a city security camera mounted on a traffic signal pole, was recorded shortly before 7 p.m. Some of what it shows is hard to make out.

Mr. Aljorna was a few feet from his front door, the video shows, when he slipped and fell, giving the agent time to catch up with him.

After Mr. Aljorna landed on the ground, a struggle took place near his front porch. The silhouettes of all three men can be seen in the scrum, though it is difficult to discern exactly what each of them did.

The struggle lasted for about 12 seconds, the footage shows. The second agent who had been involved in the car chase pulled up to the duplex moments after the physical confrontation ended.

The footage conflicts in several ways with the encounter initially described by federal officials, who said the ICE agent fired his weapon after three residents attacked him with a shovel and broom for several minutes.

A shovel was tossed aside before the struggle began, and only Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis could be seen in the video, along with the agent.

In a court filing, a lawyer for Mr. Aljorna said that his client had thrown a broom in the direction of the ICE agent, but that the broom did not strike the agent. Lawyers for the two men said that the agent had beaten Mr. Aljorna, and that Mr. Sosa-Celis was shot through the closed front door just after he went inside.

As for their legal status, in 2000, Congress created a visa category for victims of crime who are in the country unlawfully if they assist law enforcement officials, and lawyers for Sosa-Celis and Aljorna — whose deportation has already been ordered by an immigration judge — now hope that designation will keep their clients and their partners, Mendoza-Camacho and Tiapa, in the country.

So far, no criminal charges have been filed against the lying agents, who have not yet been publicly identified.

We shouldn’t hold our collective breath for either to happen, but we will update this story if more information comes to light.

SEE ALSO:

More ICE And Border Patrol Agents Than Police In Minnesota

Donald Trump Threatens Minnesota With ‘DAY OF RECKONING’

Trump Sends 2,000 ICE Agents In Minnesota Immigration ‘Crackdown’

Nobody Wants This: ICE Is Catching L’s At Every Turn In Minnesota

Video Shows ICE Agents Lied About Shooting Of Venezuelan Man In Minneapolis was originally published on newsone.com