Trump administration stopped sharing evidence about Good and Pretti killings, Minnesota officials say

The federal government has stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, state officials said in recent court filings.

Minnesota officials sued President Donald Trump’s administration in March for access to documents they said they needed to independently investigate shootings during Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors do not have jurisdiction to investigate federal agents, while Minnesota officials have said they do not trust the federal government to investigate itself.

READ MORE: Renee Good’s Family Sues US Government, Immigration Officials Over Her Murder

The state is still searching for the cellphones of officers involved in the shootings and key interview recordings.

State prosecutors announced in July that the federal government had begun providing evidence in the cases, including police body camera videos and hard drives containing statements. Hennepin County Prosecutor Mary Moriarty said at the time that the state expected to receive “all the evidence.”

But Minnesota investigators said in court filings in October that the transfer of evidence was halted shortly after the July announcement. Moriarty said the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota told him on Sept. 10 that evidence sharing would be suspended indefinitely “in light of the challenges with DC,” according to the documents.

State prosecutors again asked a judge to order federal agencies to turn over the evidence, arguing that they “have not identified any legal authority or rational basis for their obstruction of the state’s criminal investigations.”

In a response filed Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers argued that it was their responsibility to refuse to share information with state authorities. They cited the department’s rules for responding to records requests, known as the Touhy Regulations, which apply only when formal legal proceedings are underway. The lawyers said there was no lawsuit pending when Minnesota made its requests.

READ MORE: Minnesota prosecutors obtain long-hidden evidence in investigation into fatal shootings of Good and Pretti

Drew Evans, superintendent of Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said in a legal declaration that federal authorities still have Good’s clothing, the cellphone of the officer who killed her and recordings of interviews that state authorities have never been able to see.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, as she left a protest in Minneapolis on January 7. Bystander video shows Good in the driver’s seat of an SUV, honking the horn repeatedly, when masked immigration agents order him to exit the vehicle. She starts to drive forward and a police officer standing in front of the car shoots her windshield. The officer, now standing about an arm’s length from the open driver’s side window, fires twice more, according to an analysis of the videos by The Associated Press and others.

Federal officials at the time said the officer acted in self-defense.

Good’s death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who was killed weeks later by a federal officer in Minneapolis, sparked nationwide protests against the Republican president’s immigration enforcement efforts.

No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the fatal shooting.

Evans said the federal government also failed to share the recorded statement of an officer who shot Pretti, the guns the officers used, their phones, projectiles and shell casings, and a gun taken from Pretti before he was shot.