ICE Agent Faces Rare Charges Over Shooting of Immigrant

"“Mr. Castro fired his service weapon at the front door of the home, knowing there were people who had just run inside that presented absolutely no threat to him or anyone else. The bullet punched through the front door and struck Mr. Sosa-Celis's leg before traveling through the closet and lodging in the wall of a child's bedroom,” she said."

"Moriarty said the initial car stop was a case of “mistaken identity” and that Castro, the agent in question, was not in danger at the time he fired. The charges originate from an incident earlier this year when Julio Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan national, was shot in the leg after an attempted arrest of his roommate Alfredo Aljorna following a traffic stop."

"In the immediate aftermath of the January 14 incident, federal law enforcement alleged that an agent pursued Aljorna towards] the apartment he shared with Sosa-Celis and claimed that the two men had attacked the officer with a shovel and a broom, prompting him to fire a shot. In a statement, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem described the incident as an “attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” saying that the officer in question fired a “defensive shot” after being ambushed."

Hennepin County filed a nationwide arrest warrant for Christian Castro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, charging him with four counts of assault in the second degree and one count of falsely reporting a crime. The charges stem from a January shooting in Minneapolis involving Julio Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man, after an attempted arrest of his roommate, Alfredo Aljorna, following a traffic stop. Prosecutors said the stop involved mistaken identity and that Castro fired his service weapon at the front door despite people inside posing no threat. They said the bullet struck Sosa-Celis’s leg and lodged in a wall near a child’s bedroom. Federal officials previously characterized the incident as an ambush and defensive shooting, but video analysis raised questions about that account.

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