The Department of Justice is opening a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis last Saturday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Friday.
"We’re looking at everything that would shed light on that day,” Blanche said, according to the Associated Press. The FBI will lead the investigation.
Blanche called it a "standard investigation by the FBI when there are circumstances like what we saw last Saturday." He added, "And that investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil rights Division, it will involve those."
Related: Alex Pretti’s killers placed on administrative leave as Kristi Noem’s story of the shooting unravels
Pretti was wrestled to the ground by several agents and then shot multiple times. He had been trying to protect a woman who was being pepper-sprayed by federal agents.
The DOJ had announced earlier that there would be no civil rights investigation into the death of Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents January 7 as she drove by an ICE action in Minneapolis. Several employees in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division quit over the decision not to investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot her, and prosecutors resigned over the plan to investigate Good's widow, Becca Good.
Related: Justice Department will investigate Renee Good's wife but not the man who killed her
Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee have demanded that the DOJ turn over documents related to both Pretti's and Renee Good's killings by next week. "Someone affirmatively ordered federal law enforcement to instead investigate Ms. Good's widow. Someone affirmatively ordered line agents to block state prosecutors from accessing key evidence. Someone is now taking the same actions with regard to the killing of another American citizen," said a letter from the Dems, obtained by CBS News.
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