The day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Christian Castro shot Minneapolis resident Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg, Kristi Noem, then the secretary of homeland security, described that use of force as a clearly justified response to "an attempted murder." Sosa-Celis and two other Venezuelans had "ambushed and attacked" Castro, Noem averred, "beat[ing] him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms."
Although the Department of Homeland Security has not retracted that account of the January 14 incident, federal prosecutors later admitted it was not true. The fallout from that lie continued on Monday, when Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced criminal charges against Castro, initiating a case that will test the ability of state prosecutors to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable for violent misconduct.
