Trump officials have tried to justify ICE shootings. Is it backfiring?

Just hours after Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement claiming, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later suggest that Pretti had been “asked to come forward and continue to resist” by the Minnesota governor.

Multiple videos from the scene immediately contradicted those claims, and since then, there has been no indication that Pretti threatened or planned to harm law enforcement.

Several high-profile incidents of use of force and arrests involving federal immigration agents have involved a similar cycle: strident statements from Trump administration officials, soon contradicted by video footage or other evidence. Some law enforcement experts say repeated lies harm federal authorities, both in the public eye and in the courtroom.

Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, has put five defendants on trial for assaulting officers — and his office has lost every case. Court records and a Times investigation show that grand juries in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles have repeatedly rejected criminal complaints filed by prosecutors in similar cases.

Despite repeated legal reprimands, administration officials have continued to push for criminal charges against those at protest sites, including the controversial arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday.

“When the nation’s top federal law enforcement officials spread false narratives like this, it causes the public to question everything the government says going forward,” said Peter Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman in Washington who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations. “You see it in the way judges react. You see it in the way grand juries react. You see it in the way juries react. That trust that was built over generations is gone.”

The credibility issues were on display in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom in September, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino was the key witness in the assault trial of Brayan Ramos-Brito, accused of punching a Border Patrol agent during protests against immigration raids last summer. Video from the scene did not clearly capture the alleged attack, and Bovino was the only Border Patrol official to testify as an eyewitness.

Under questioning by federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega, Bovino initially denied being disciplined by the Border Patrol for calling undocumented immigrants “scum, dirt and trash” but later admitted receiving a reprimand. The jury returned with an acquittal after deliberating for about an hour. A juror who spoke to The Times outside court said Bovino’s testimony detailing his account of the alleged assault had “no impact” on their decision.

Last year, a Chicago judge ruled that Bovino “lied” during a deposition in a lawsuit about how officers used force against protesters and journalists.

Spokespeople for Essayli and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Essayli prosecutors have seen four other cases involving allegations of assault against a federal officer end in acquittals, a nearly unheard of losing streak. A Pew study found that less than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted in the United States in 2022.

““This is especially true when the only witness to an event is a law enforcement officer.”

Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said federal law enforcement officials have a responsibility to be “a mature, responsible player in the room” and remain as apolitical as possible. Although he is a strong supporter of President Trump’s immigration agenda and has said the Biden administration shares some responsibility for politicizing federal law enforcement, Noem’s handling of Pretti’s killing was problematic.

“What she said doesn’t really match what the available facts tell us,” Fleischman said. “I think it undermines the credibility of the justice system.”

Fleischman added that he worried that some recent government missteps could blunt approval of the program that twice brought Trump to the White House.

“One of the main reasons I’m so excited about this president is his stance on immigration issues,” he said. “When you see unforced errors from the home team that reduce public support for the president’s immigration agenda, it’s demoralizing.”

Another top Trump aide, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, also spoke out after the Minnesota shooting, calling Pretti a “murderer.”

Responding to a Times reporter on

Testimony from Los Angeles courtrooms paints a different picture.

Carol Williams, foreman of the jury in the last assault trial that federal prosecutors lost in Los Angeles, said the people she served with avoided conversations about current events or ICE raids.

“We didn’t talk about the protests in Los Angeles and we didn’t talk about the protests that happened in Minnesota or anything,” Williams said. “People, I’m sure, probably keep up with the news, but as far as talking about it in the jury room, we haven’t done that.”

Last year, Essayli and Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security’s chief spokeswoman, accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming his vehicle into immigration agents in South Los Angeles, causing one agent to open fire. The video released after assault charges were dropped last year, however, does not show the vehicle moving when the ICE agent opened fire, wounding Parias and a deputy U.S. marshal.

After receiving the body camera footage, McLaughlin reiterated the claim that Parias had armed his vehicle and said the officers “followed their training and fired defensive shots.”

McLaughlin also called Keith Porter Jr. — a Los Angeles man shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve — an “active shooter” in early media comments on the case, using a term that typically refers to a gunman attempting to kill multiple people.

Los Angeles police said no one else was injured at the scene and did not use the term “active shooter” in their statements about the case.

Porter’s family and his advocates argued the force was not justified. They said Porter was shooting into the air to celebrate the new year, behavior that was illegal and discouraged as dangerous by public authorities.

The officer’s attorney, Brian Palacios, said there was evidence Porter shot the officer.

Carr, the former Justice Department spokesman, said the Trump administration broke with years of cautious standards for press statements designed to protect the credibility of federal law enforcement.

“That trust erodes when they rush to promote narratives before a real investigation takes place,” he said.

In one case, Homeland Security officials’ refusal to back down may result in video footage being made public that further undermines their narrative.

Last October, Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago, who claimed she was following him in a car and obstructing an operation. In a statement, McLaughlin accused Martinez of ramming a law enforcement vehicle while armed with a “semi-automatic weapon.”

Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped the charges, but McLaughlin and others continued to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist.” As a result, Martinez filed a motion to revoke a protective order that kept hidden video of the incident and other evidence.

“While the United States has voluntarily dropped formal charges against her, with prejudice… government officials continue to pursue Ms. Martinez’s reputation in the court of public opinion,” the motion states.