Judge wipes away order requiring feds to preserve evidence gathered at Alex Pretti shooting scene
A Minnesota judge has wiped away an order he issued last month that required federal investigators to preserve evidence gathered at the scene of Alex Pretti’s fatal shooting by immigration officers.
US District Judge Alex Tostrud said he was lifting the emergency order he issued the day of Pretti’s shooting that barred various federal investigatory offices from destroying or altering any evidence related to the incident because he had gotten assurances from federal officials that evidence would be properly maintained.
The judge, an appointee of President Donald Trump, had imposed the requirement at the behest of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office after they raised concerns in court that their own investigative efforts into the incident could be undermined absent his intervention.
“Though the record is not one-sided, the greater weight of the evidence shows Defendants are not likely to destroy or improperly alter evidence related to Mr. Pretti’s shooting during the life of this case, and other relevant considerations do not on balance favor a continuing preservation order,” Tostrud wrote in an 18-page decision.
“The temporary restraining order’s terms are not meaningfully different from defendants’ preservation policies,” the judge wrote. “An ongoing preservation order – and the contempt power that accompanies it – would overlay, not just defendants’ preservation polices, but any investigative measures that might alter evidence.”
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension told CNN that talks with federal investigators on sharing evidence in the case are ongoing, adding that they are “hopeful” an agreement can be reached. Thus far, however, the FBI and Homeland Security Invesdtigations have not shared information with local investigators.
In his ruling, Tostrud went on to say that “examination and testing often leave evidence in a different condition after testing than it was before” and that such potential changes occurring under his now-dissolved order would have forced him to play what he described as an improper role in the government’s investigation into the shooting.
“Legitimate concerns over whether those types of investigative measures comply with a preservation order might reasonably prompt defendants to seek judicial direction,” Tostrud wrote. “That, in turn, would inject the court into Defendants’ investigation, not just their evidence preservation.”
The BCA had been iced out of an earlier federal probe into a different fatal shooting of a US citizen, Renee Good, by federal agents in Minnesota and the lawsuit before Tostrud represented a frenzied effort by the state investigators to ensure they’d later have access to the evidence for their own inspection.
An FBI official swore in court papers last month that “evidence was packaged by trained evidence collectors” who wore the correct personal equipment and packaged the evidence in tamper-proof evidence tape. The evidence the FBI collected is in a secure evidence room with controlled access in the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
