After Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Christian Castro shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis on January 14, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) portrayed that use of potentially lethal force as fully justified. "Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals," it said in a press release the next day, Castro "fired a defensive shot to defend his life," striking Sosa-Celis in the leg.
As the DHS told it, Castro "attempted to apprehend" Sosa-Celis, "a criminal illegal alien from Venezuela," who "began to resist and violently assault the officer." Castro was on the ground, wrestling with Sosa-Celis, when two other men "came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle." Then Sosa-Celis "got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick." Kristi Noem, then the DHS secretary, described "an attempted murder of federal law enforcement" in which Castro "was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms."
