Minnesota AG Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Moriarty, BCA Superintendent Evans Sue DOJ and DHS in DC Federal Court for Evidence Blockade in Good, Pretti, Sosa-Celis Shootings

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and BCA Superintendent Drew Evans filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

The lawsuit covers three Operation Metro Surge shootings where federal authorities have denied state investigators access to evidence: the January 7, 2026 killing of Renee Good; the January 24, 2026 killing of Alex Pretti; and the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis (wounded, not killed; a federal officer in the Sosa-Celis case is reportedly under investigation for allegedly lying under oath about the incident).

Legal theories: (1) Administrative Procedure Act violation — “arbitrary and capricious” denial of evidence access not in accordance with law; unlawful withholding and unreasonable delay of agency action; (2) 10th Amendment violation — improper federal constraints on state authority to investigate concurrent-jurisdiction incidents.

Quotes:

Ellison: “This is extremely unusual. This is something that is arbitrary, capricious, it is coming from Washington, and it has scary implications for other parts of the country.”

Moriarty: “Minnesotans are seeing their federal government hide evidence and obstruct investigations into these incidents. We will not stand by and watch that happen.”

Significance: The first formal judicial challenge to the FBI state-lockout pattern that has operated across all three Operation Metro Surge shooting cases. The lawsuit directly contests the federal government’s claimed basis for denying state investigators access to evidence in federal-agent use-of-force cases. BCA Superintendent Evans’s testimony represents an on-record, sworn statement by a 20-year law enforcement career official that the evidence-withholding pattern is unprecedented.

The Pretti case in particular has been the subject of specific federal resistance: the BCA was physically blocked from the Pretti scene on January 24, 2026 even with a judge-signed warrant; the FBI formally denied BCA all Pretti evidence on approximately February 16, 2026; and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott confirmed on February 12, 2026 HSGAC testimony that CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility — the institutional successor to the disbanded CIT cover-up teams — was conducting “collection and preservation of evidence” in the Pretti case.

Update: In the Good case, the federal government transferred evidence on May 6, 2026 — the first evidence handover after months of withholding. Whether this transfer resulted from the March 24 lawsuit or a separate negotiation is not established at primary-source level as of this research date (May 11, 2026). Pretti case evidence transfer status not confirmed.