MS Comment: Tonight I apologize in advance for indulging in a rare rant, which I will label clearly as a “comment” here and at the end. By now, anyone paying even casual attention has seen the pattern. There’s a shooting during an immigration operation. DHS immediately issues a forceful statement that reads like a clear justification for the shooting. That version gets saturation coverage. Then the evidence shows up—video, 911 audio, sworn testimony, affidavits—and the original DHS story doesn’t just look “spun.” It is exposed as blatantly false in material ways. The correction, if it comes at all, arrives quietly, buried in a docket entry after the news cycle has moved on. That’s not a PR problem. It’s an accountability problem. And it just happened again in Minnesota—involving a shooting that took place after the shooting of Renee Good, and before the shooting of Alex Pretti. My question is — when and how will the DHS liars be held accountable?
The Shooting
On January 14, a week after Renee Good was shot, there was a second DHS shooting in Minneapolis that attracted some attention at the time, but quickly disappeared from the headlines. In this shooting, a federal agent shot a Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, allegedly after a traffic and foot chase. Remember that one? Here is the article here on Deeper Look about it at the time. 2nd Minneapolis Shooting Disputed by. Family, Neighbors.
1) What DHS said
DHS framed the January 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis as a clean, justified use-of-force scenario: a “targeted traffic stop,” a fleeing suspect, a violent attack with improvised weapons, and an officer firing a “defensive shot.”
Here are the exact words of DHS at the time:
Attempting to evade arrest, Sosa-Celis fled the scene in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car, and proceeded to flee on foot. The law enforcement officer pursued Sosa-Celis also on foot, caught up to him, and attempted to apprehend him when Sosa-Celis began to resist and violently assault the officer. While Sosa-Celis and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle.
As the officer was being ambushed and attacked by the two individuals, Sosa-Celis got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick. Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. Sosa-Celis was hit in the leg. All three subjects ran back into the apartment and barricaded themselves inside. ICE successfully arrested all three illegal aliens.
That was the official public record DHS wanted set in stone.
2) What neighbors and family said
From the beginning, people at the scene disputed the core timeline—especially where the shooting happened and who was actually being pursued. Sahan Journal reported a contemporaneous account in which a woman on a recorded 911 call says that as he shut the front door, an agent shot him in the leg—a version that collides with DHS’s “ground struggle / ambush / defensive shot” framing.
Whether the shot happened during an “ambush” in the snow or at a doorway as a door was closing is not a nuance. It’s the entire moral and legal story.
The story largely disappeared from the public consciousness at this point.
3) What the government alleged in court
Meanwhile, the case moved into court, and there the story (which went largely uncovered) became more granular—and less like DHS’s press-release narrative.
The court record described important shifts: Unsealed documents described agents chasing the wrong person after a license-plate check, and described a scenario in which, at the moment the officer fired, the men allegedly holding objects had dropped them and were fleeing—again undercutting the “imminent threat / defensive shot” premise DHS sold to the public.
Sahan Journal’s hearing coverage also reflected how contested the evidentiary picture was becoming in real time, including discussion of video that was not publicly played in court at that hearing. But Sahan Journal is not widely read, and none of this was noticed by most of us.
4) Today’s retraction
Now comes the part that should have triggered a second wave of coverage—but mostly didn’t.
DOJ has moved to dismiss the criminal charges with prejudice (meaning they cannot be refiled), citing “newly discovered evidence” that is “materially inconsistent” with the allegations in the complaint affidavit and related testimony.
We still don’t know, publicly, what the “newly discovered evidence” is—bodycam, surveillance, additional phone video, forensics, dispatch logs, internal contradictions, or something else. But DOJ’s language tells us the bottom line: the case DHS built its public narrative around did not survive contact with the evidence.
And note this — the DOJ entity making the retraction is the the same US Attorney’s office where six prosecutor’s resigned over the Renee Good shooting’s handling, and where there is still turmoil. We can’t be sure what the motives are and who the players are — but it is clear that this office has taken a position on this case that differs from how DHS has been trying to frame it.
Comment: The flooding-the-zone problem
The problem — is anyone paying attention t this story?
Not really.
This is how narrative capture works now.
DHS’s first version lands loud and fast. The correction arrives later, in procedural language, after attention has shifted. Most people will never hear that the sworn story collapsed—because the collapse doesn’t trend.
Minnesota is a clean example: DHS issued a confident justification story. Witness accounts disputed it immediately. The court record diverged further. And now DOJ has effectively conceded the mismatch where it matters most—in a filing.
That should be news. And it should have consequences. Will it?
Look. I don’t usually allow myself to express my outrage quite this clearly, but the thing here is — not only is this a pattern we keep seeing, we actually saw it twice today. The same thing happened in Chicago, where DHS shot Marimar Martinez five times in October and claimed she was a terrorist and rammed the vehicle of the ICE officer who shot her. But today, body-cam footage showed it was entirely BS. Surprise surprise. I’ll do an article on that tomorrow. It’s the same disgusting playbook, over an over again. Sorry for letting my disgust come out tonight.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/01/15/dhs-releases-more-details-about-three-violent-criminal-illegal-aliens-who-violently
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/ice-shooting-north-minneapolis-what-we-know/
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/ice-north-minneapolis-shooting-detainees-released/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/doj-moves-drop-charges-against-men-arrested-after-minneapolis-ice-shooting-2026-02-13/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/evidence-contradicts-trump-immigration-officials-accounts-violent-encounters-2026-01-27/
https://apnews.com/article/d713836a06471af9f38ee6ee8976a20c
https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/05/two-men-charged-with-assaulting-agents-in-ice-shooting-released-by-a-judge-re-detained-by-ice/
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/02/05/indriany-mendoza-camacho-speaks-out-about-ice-shooting-her-partner-julio-sosacelis
https://www.startribune.com/doj-moves-to-drop-charges-against-men-arrested-after-north-minneapolis-ice-shooting/601581378
https://www.startribune.com/after-assault-allegations-doj-walks-back-charges-against-ice-protesters/601578511
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/02/dhs-arrests-more-criminal-illegal-aliens-minnesota-over-weekend-including-sex
https://sahanjournal.com/public-safety/north-minneapolis-ice-shooting-report-immigration/
https://sahanjournal.com/public-safety/ice-shooting-north-minneapolis-community-response/
https://sahanjournal.com/ice-shootings-minneapolis-minnesota/
https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-shooting-ice-operation-turns-violent-witnesses-allege-excessive-force
https://www.fox26houston.com/news/north-minneapolis-ice-shooting-doj-dismisses-charges-venezuelan-men-feb-12-2026
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ice-re-arrests-two-venezuelan-men-after-federal-judges-release-order
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/doj-moves-to-drop-charges-against-men-arrested-after-minneapolis-ice-shooting
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/timeline-trumps-minnesota-immigration-crackdown-2026-02-12/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-sharply-question-trump-officials-about-pretti-shooting-use-force-2026-02-12/
Thank you bringing it to everyone’s attention - We do remember the incident and had wondered what really happened as it seemed to be hushed up - but being on the other side of the world means we often don’t hear how things play out. Thank you for shining a light.
I do not know how in the hell Marimar survived that assault with FIVE bullets. I've been trying to follow her story since I live nearby. But I did not hear about this. This flooding the zone thing is so disorienting and frustrating. There's just too much to try to remember.