Minutes after a federal agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting?
“Wouldn’t it be at least that of the State? asked a Franklin Park officer, according to body camera footage.
Chief Mike Witz shook his head. “No, because this is a federal shooting,” he replied. “You’re not going to investigate a federal officer.”
His agents did not investigate. In their report, they did not even note the names of the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents present at the scene of Silverio Villegas González’s death. Instead, they deferred to the FBI.
Local law enforcement also failed to investigate when a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a U.S. citizen in her car in Chicago less than a month later. Or when an ICE agent in Phoenix shot a Honduran man during a traffic stop later that month.
In fact, local police have not opened investigations into six of the 12 shootings by on-duty federal agents that resulted in the death or injury of citizens and immigrants since September, according to a ProPublica analysis. In three other shooting cases, state or local police said they had opened investigations, which they called standard practice in those jurisdictions. And in Minnesota, where ICE and Border Patrol shot and killed two U.S. citizens and injured a Venezuelan last month, state police attempted to conduct independent investigations but were thwarted by the Trump administration, which went so far as to block officers from accessing the scene even when they had a court warrant.
In almost every case, President Donald Trump’s administration blamed the shootings for the injuries and deaths within hours of the incident, raising questions about whether federal officials can fairly and objectively investigate their own. Legal experts and immigrant advocates say this apparent lack of accountability requires local authorities to step up and exercise their power to investigate and prosecute federal agents who violate state laws — from battery to murder.
“Local police and the state got a pass,” said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and co-founder and director of its Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “Residents have every right and should demand that: ‘Hey, state authorities, police, local police: protect us. Stop the people who are killing us, beating us, pointing guns at us and threatening us and assaulting us without a legal reason to do so.'”
It’s usually the opposite scenario: federal authorities step in to investigate a troubled police department. But local authorities investigated and federal agents indicted in the past. It’s just rare and complicated. The Federal Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits local interference with federal law enforcement when they are acting reasonably and within the scope of their duties.
But given the aggressive tactics employed by immigration agents under the Trump administration, Futterman and other legal experts said local police and prosecutors are morally obligated to at least try to hold federal law enforcement agents accountable.
“We are currently in an environment where ICE agents are blatantly and blatantly violating the Constitution and the law,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The federal government has made it very clear that it will do nothing to provide any sort of accountability guarantee for its agents. Unfortunately, with Congress taking no action to rein in ICE agents, there is really no choice but for states to protect the rights of their constituents.”
In a statement, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said officers are “trained to use the minimum force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers.” All use of force incidents are properly reported and investigated by an appropriate law enforcement agency, the spokesperson said.
Immigration officers at the border have long criticized for use of deadly force and subsequent lack of rigorous investigations. But now, the same militarized force is deployed in major American cities, far from the border, where residents are not used to their presence.
The shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month — and the federal government’s resistance to a routine local investigation — has prompted Democratic and Republican officials across the country to call for more accountability. Last week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order ordering police officers to document suspected illegal activities by federal immigration agents and turn over any evidence of crimes to prosecutors.
California’s governor and attorney general have reminded local police of their rights to investigate federal agents. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes launched a website asking residents to submit evidence of federal agents’ misconduct. And prosecutors from nine jurisdictions across the country announced a new coalition to provide mutual support to law enforcement authorities bringing charges against federal agents.
In Minneapolis, prosecutors say they are working with state police to investigate despite resistance from federal officials. So far, DHS officials have refused to provide evidence, if at all. names of officers involved in January shooting. Prosecutors went so far as to obtain an emergency order requiring federal agencies to preserve evidence in the Pretti case. A judge overturned the temporary restraining order Monday, following assurances from the federal government that it would preserve investigative documents.
Prosecutors have said they believe they can still gather enough evidence to make an informed decision about whether to charge the federal agents.
“We get cases every day that don’t have all the evidence that we would like,” Hennepin County Prosecutor Mary Moriarty said in an interview. “We would certainly like the gun. We would like the shell casings, that sort of thing. But it’s also not a mystery as to why these people died.”
Even after obtaining a court warrant, investigators from the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were turned away by federal agents from the Minneapolis intersection where Pretti, 37, was shot and killed. Federal officials also excluded BCA from the investigation into the death of Renee Good, who was shot and killed in her car two weeks before Pretti.
BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said he has never seen his officers physically prevented from doing their jobs by another law enforcement agency. Across the country, he said, state agencies like the BCA regularly investigate deadly incidents like this.
“We are in uncharted territory here,” he said.
Hours after each killing, Trump officials publicly called the dead “domestic terrorists.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti was “brandishing” a gun when he approached agents, while the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino said Pretti was planning a “massacre.”
The video footage contradicted the administration’s version of events. Pretti, for example, never drew his gun, which he was legally allowed to carry.
Early last week, Trump fired Bovino and Border Patrol agents from Minneapolis, and on Wednesday, DHS officials announced they would pull 700 additional agents from the state — a sign the administration may be changing its approach in response to growing criticism. The FBI is currently investigating Pretti’s shooting, and the Justice Department announced Friday it has opened a civil rights investigation.
A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to questions for this story but referred reporters to a news conference last weekend in which Assistant U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said DHS was following its normal investigative protocols into the Pretti shooting.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has said it has no plans to investigate Good’s shooting.
“We don’t just investigate every time a police officer is forced to defend themselves against someone who puts their life in danger,” Blanche told Fox News.
Police in Franklin Park and Chicago have not said why they did not open their own investigation into the two shootings last fall. In the Franklin Park case, the decision to let the FBI investigate Villegas’ killing alone was made minutes after the shooting, according to news reports.
Villegas, a 38-year-old restaurant cook, was shot while trying to get away from ICE agents who arrested him. As in Minneapolis, the Trump administration’s narrative of what happened did not match the evidence. DHS said Villegas dragged one of the agents, seriously injuring him. The officer fired “because he feared for his life,” officials said. Police body camera footage released after the shooting showed the officer downplaying his injury as “nothing serious.”
At the scene, Franklin Park police officers directed traffic and interviewed a witness, the footage shows. At one point, an officer told his colleague that the police department was “just providing security until they get here,” referring to the FBI.
Witz, who was police chief at the time but has since retired, could not be reached for comment; the current chief did not respond to interview requests.
A similar situation occurred in Chicago on October 4 after a Border Patrol agent shot at the vehicle of a woman who federal authorities said had “ambushed” them. Marimar Martinez was accused of assaulting federal agents, although the charges were later dropped.
At the time, Chicago police said officers responded to a shooting call “to document the incident” and to “maintain traffic safety and control.” When asked last week why it had not opened an independent investigation, the department referred ProPublica to its October statement, which made clear that police were “not involved in the incident or its investigation” and directed questions to federal authorities.
As the events in Minneapolis continued to draw national criticism, Chicago’s mayor unveiled his executive order ordering agents to investigate federal immigration agents who break the law and refer them for criminal prosecution. In a statement, City Hall said the initiative was a response to “the lack of legal repercussions following the shooting of Marimar Martinez in Chicago and the murders of Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park and Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.”
Legal experts said they were not aware of recent examples of Illinois law enforcement agencies investigating an on-duty federal agent, although last month a suburban police department obtained misdemeanor charges against an off-duty ICE agent accused of attacking an activist who was filming him while the agent pumped gas.
Illinois State Police officials said they would investigate federal agents accused of breaking the law if asked to do so.
Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has asked a state accountability commission to examine the role of top Trump officials in escalating aggressive tactics during a months-long immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago and its suburbs late last year. Pritzker previously created a commission to gather video and testimony about federal agents’ conduct and create a public record of what happened. The commission does not have subpoena power, but can refer information about potential violations of state law to the law. law enforcement agencies or prosecutors.
“Imagine if the officers who shot Mr. Villegas González on September 12 had been publicly punished,” Rubén Castillo, a retired federal judge who chairs the commission, said at a hearing Friday. “Maybe, just maybe, the shootings in Minnesota would not have happened and two people would be alive, now dead.”
He added: “We will be having conversations with local law enforcement to suggest prosecutions that should take place as we speak.” »
In California, neither the Los Angeles nor Ontario police departments investigated after two men were shot by federal immigration agents in separate incidents in October and then accused of assaulting federal agents — despite video evidence and victim statements that conflicted with accounts provided by officials. A federal judge has dismissed charges against a man, a Mexican immigrant and popular TikToker; the other, a U.S. citizen, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial in April.
Phoenix police also said they are not investigating the shooting of a man who federal authorities say fled immigration agents last October, leaving the matter to the FBI and ICE. And local police in Portland, Oregon, are not investigating an incident in which federal agents shot a Venezuelan man who allegedly struck an unoccupied Border Patrol vehicle with his car in early January, injuring him and his passenger. The man was later accused of assaulting a police officer. Unlike other cases, the Oregon Attorney General’s Office opened its own investigation.
In contrast, police in Pima County, Arizona, and Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and the Texas Rangers have all said they have opened investigations into recent shootings involving federal immigration agents.
Asking local authorities to investigate their federal counterparts is not without difficulties. Police officers and prosecutors fear being seen as interfering with federal law enforcement operations. They may be reluctant to damage their already complicated relationships with the agencies they sometimes partner with.
Then there is concern about political consequences, including the threat of loss of federal funding, a dynamic particularly acute under the Trump administration.
“This federal government has made all kinds of threats and acted on threats against local authorities and state authorities for refusing to cooperate or not doing what they wanted them to do,” said Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “That’s a reason in itself not to bite a hand that feeds you.”
Even when local officials open their own investigations into federal agents, there is no guarantee they will be able to take the case to court. Federal agents can claim immunity in response to state charges, legal experts said, and can take their cases to federal court.
This immunity stems from a Supreme Court ruling more than a century ago. During the civil rights movement, this immunity was used when the federal government wanted to protect its law enforcement officers charged with enforcing then-controversial efforts like desegregation in hostile states.
Today, local officials face the opposite challenge: protecting the constitutional rights of their constituents against what they view as excessive force by federal agents.
Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia, would be the first to admit that nothing about prosecuting federal agents is easy. During the first Trump administration, Descano filed manslaughter charges against two U.S. Park Police officers who fatally shot a Virginia man. A federal judge threw out the case in 2021 and said the officers were entitled to immunity because their actions were necessary and proper.
Descano, who is part of the coalition of prosecutors seeking to hold federal law enforcement accountable, nevertheless said he believes he and others have a responsibility to do so.
“If they are not willing to take these actions,” he said, “then they are cowards and they are not worthy of their position.” »
