The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reviewing body camera footage of the encounter that culminated in Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti’s death on Saturday. That footage could help clarify the circumstances in which a Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer fatally shot Pretti.
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross killed Minneapolis protester Renee Good on January 7, by contrast, he used his cellphone rather than a body camera to record the encounter. Although Vice President J.D. Vance claimed the resulting video confirmed that Ross shot Good in self-defense, it does not actually show what was happening when Ross fired his gun. It is not clear whether other ICE agents at the scene were wearing body cameras, but it seems unlikely, since the local ICE office does not have any.
Both incidents underline the importance of body cameras in resolving questions about the use of force by law enforcement officers. But although body cameras have been widely adopted by state and local law enforcement agencies, their use by DHS personnel is spotty and inconsistent. That could change as a result of negotiations between the Trump administration and Democratic legislators, who are demanding several reforms, including a body camera mandate for all immigration agents, as a condition of approving DHS funding.
So far, the only publicly available video record of the Good and Pretti shootings consists of cellphone footage. In both cases, that evidence discredited the Trump administration’s initial justifications, which portrayed Good and Pretti as would-be murderers. The videos suggest that Good, contrary to what President Donald Trump and other officials said, did not deliberately try to run Ross over with her SUV. And they show that Pretti, who had a carry permit, never drew his pistol or “attacked those officers,” contrary to what DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed.
The cellphone videos nevertheless leave several questions unanswered. Some of those questions are legal: Did the officers reasonably believe, given “the totality of the circumstances,” that the use of deadly force was necessary to protect themselves, their colleagues, or the general public? But there are also policy questions: What sort of rules or training would help prevent outcomes like these?
Body camera footage could help answer those questions by providing a more complete record of the events preceding the shootings and by showing what the officers were seeing, hearing, and saying. Consider the account of the Pretti shooting that CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) offered in a report to Congress on Tuesday.
After “CBP personnel attempted to take Pretti into custody,” the OPR report says, “Pretti resisted CBP personnel’s efforts and a struggle ensued. During the struggle, a [Border Patrol agent] yelled, ‘He’s got a gun!’ multiple times. Approximately five seconds later, a [Border Patrol agent] discharged his CBP-issued Glock 19 and a [CBP officer] also discharged his CBP-issued Glock 47 at Pretti. After the shooting, a [Border Patrol agent] advised he had possession of Pretti’s firearm. The [Border Patrol agent] subsequently cleared and secured Pretti’s firearm in his vehicle.”
Hellbound and Down 