Minneapolis on Monday released city-owned security camera video showing a January 14 shooting between a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer and two Venezuelan men, footage that city leaders say does not match the federal account of what happened.
The video shows federal officers chasing one of the men to his residence before another Venezuelan man who lived there was shot during the confrontation. The officer fired a single shot from his handgun, striking Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the right thigh. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the footage made it "crystal clear" that, in this case and others tied to Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s account "simply does not match the facts."
The release matters because the confrontation has already triggered suspensions of two federal officers involved in Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, and because federal authorities later dropped all charges against Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Sosa-Celis in February. Prosecutors also opened a criminal investigation into whether officers lied under oath about what happened. Federal authorities initially accused the two men of beating an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel, while one officer said he struggled with both men for about three minutes before opening fire.
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The new video undercuts that account by showing the confrontation lasted about 12 seconds, not about three minutes. It also lands after state and county prosecutors complained that federal authorities had refused to share information about this shooting and two other Minneapolis cases, including the fatal shootings of Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24. The city said only that the footage was related to the January shooting and gave no added narrative. The Hennepin County attorney’s office declined to comment because the investigation remains active.
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What makes the timeline especially damaging for federal officials is that investigators had access to the video within hours of the shooting but did not watch it until nearly three weeks after they charged the two men. Minneapolis’s release follows reporting that brought that delay into focus and adds a visual record to an already widening dispute over what federal officers told prosecutors, what they documented under oath and what happened on the ground in Minneapolis that winter night.
