ICE officer Christian Castro indicted on 6 counts of lying to the FBI about shooting a Venezuelan man through a closed door

ProPublica reports Justice Department leaders in Washington overruled the lead prosecutor, who wanted a civil rights charge; that prosecutor was fired the same day.

What the video undid after the shooting: Federal prosecutors dropped their own assault charges against Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Aljorna, citing evidence "materially inconsistent" with agents' hearing testimony. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had called the encounter "an attempted murder of federal law enforcement." Sosa-Celis plans to seek civil damages from the federal government, per the ACLU of Minnesota.

ContextSection 242 of the federal criminal code makes it a crime for an officer to violate someone's rights on purpose. It is the statute used against the Minneapolis police officers in George Floyd's killing. It requires proof the officer acted willfully, a high bar that keeps such cases rare. It also carries far more weight: up to life in prison when a weapon injures the victim, against five years per false-statements count, or 30 years at most across Castro's six. No outlet found an earlier case of the Justice Department charging an ICE officer over an on-duty shooting since the agency was created in 2003, and CNN calls this the first. Castro is free despite an outstanding Minnesota arrest warrant because extradition stalled. Gov. Greg Abbott never signed it, Texas law required his release once a 90-day hold ran out, and a federal judge in Texas ruled on Aug. 26 that Minnesota's suit to force the handover was premature. The state case brought by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty — four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime — is still live.

BBC NEWS11 sources