cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7485198
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23464
Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in St. Paul on Tuesday to demand that state officials take action to bring the federal agents who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti to justice.
"We are demanding that they bring charges against the killer officers," said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for Minnesota, which organized the protest. "We want the identity of the officers. We know the federal government is not investigating. They are lying to the American people. They are denying us justice. It is time for the state to do their job."
The crowd then broke out into a raucous chant: "Do your job! Do your job!"
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The protest, which took place outside Walz's office in the Minnesota state Capitol building, came as the governor negotiates an end to federal immigration agents' takeover of Minnesota with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who was recently dispatched to oversee the Trump administration's operation in the state following the departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.
The Trump administration appears on the back foot after the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, over the weekend, by a gang of federal agents, which was caught on camera and heightened the already simmering national anger at Trump's deployments around the US.
Minneapolis has become the epicenter of this outrage, with more than 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents deployed as part of what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said is "the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out."
In addition to the slayings of Good and Pretti, agents have been documented engaging in relentless brutality against the people of Minnesota, including many US citizens. Cases abound of residents being subject to explicit racial profiling, being threatened and assaulted for engaging in First Amendment-protected protest and legal observation, and being detained and interrogated as part of unconstitutional "citizenship checks."
Minnesota state officials, including Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, have faced mounting pressure to pursue criminal charges against Jonathan Ross, the agent who killed Good earlier this month. But Minnesota’s public safety commissioner has said “it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible,” for a local investigation to continue “without cooperation from the federal government.”
According to Walz's office, he outlined two main goals in his closed-door meeting with Homan: He wants the administration to dramatically reduce the massive presence of agents in the state and to give state investigators a role in the investigations of Good and Pretti's deaths.
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A drawdown of agents reportedly began after a call between Walz and Trump on Monday, during which the governor said he would look for the state to work with the federal government “in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.” Trump characterized it as a “request to work together with respect to Minnesota.”
But Suleiman Adan, the deputy executive director of CAIR Minnesota, told Common Dreams that such a compromise is inadequate, calling on Walz “to use every legal and political tool at his disposal.”
"That means empowering county attorneys to open their own inquiries, collecting and preserving bystander video and witness statements, and going to court when necessary to try to compel or preserve evidence," he said. "It also means using the governor’s political leverage, public pressure, legal action, and intergovernmental channels to make non-cooperation itself a public issue, not something that happens quietly behind closed doors."
According to a report on Wednesday by NBC News, DHS itself is conducting federal inquiries into its own agents' killings of Pretti and Good, which has raised immediate concerns about impartiality, especially after top officials have jumped to preemptively exonerate the agents while labeling the victims as "domestic terrorists."
Rather than simply serve a role in a federal investigation, CAIR wants Walz to demand an independent state-level investigation run by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), which attained a restraining order to prevent federal agents from destroying evidence in Pretti's case.
"Minnesotans are asking, 'Are we safe here anymore?' and they need actionable leadership, not half-measures," Adan said.
Adan said it was unclear at this point what guarantees Walz has secured to ensure proper oversight of agents and the protection of civil rights.
“While Governor Walz has met with Border Czar Tom Homan as part of efforts to address the situation, that meeting has not yet translated into real protections for community members on the ground,” he continued. “We are concerned that any agreement that normalizes or legitimizes an expanded federal enforcement presence without binding constraints, transparent accountability, and independent oversight does not protect Minnesota residents and undermines public trust.”
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