Top FBI agent who tracked MN assassin switched to probe ICE victims: 'Americans less safe'
Last month, in a federal courtroom in St. Paul, Getsch testified for the U.S. government in an entirely different kind of case.
The seven-year FBI veteran was the government’s sole witness as prosecutors sought to sustain charges against two Venezuelan immigrants accused of assaulting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, one of whom had been shot in the thigh by the agent as the two men ran away then retreated into their house.
Getsch’s path from building a case against the man responsible for arguably the worst act of political violence in Minnesota history to investigating immigrants accused of assaulting officers while resisting deportation offers a striking picture of how the FBI Minneapolis office has been repositioned to meet the demands of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Tensions boil
The assassination of the Hortmans in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park briefly dominated national headlines, part of a troubling rise in political violence in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
In contrast, the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis by an ICE agent on the city’s north side on Jan. 14 barely registered a blip in the news cycle, a week after another ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good.
By the time two Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, the Sosa-Celis’ shooting was all but forgotten. Nonetheless, when it happened, with tensions at a boil over Good’s death, federal agents were ultimately forced to retreat, after shooting teargas at protesters.
The incident began when Sosa-Celis’ roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, had been driving a silver Ford Focus while making Door Dash deliveries when an unmarked vehicle activated blue lights and siren. Aljorna panicked and called Sosa-Celis, who suggested he come back home.
After crashing the car into a snowbank, Aljorna ran towards the house as an ICE agent chased on foot. As Sosa-Celis waited at the door, Aljorna slipped. The ICE agent tackled him, only for Aljorna to slip out of his jacket and break loose. As Aljorna and Sosa-Celis ran into the house, the ICE agent fired his pistol, striking Sosa-Celis in his upper right thigh.
News of the shooting spread quickly. An angry crowd gathered as federal agents swarmed the neighborhood. ICE agents shot teargas into a window, behind which Sosa-Celis and his girlfriend, Aljorna and his wife, and two children were hiding.
The FBI Minneapolis’ Violent Crime Squad, of which Getsch is a member, and its Evidence Response Team responded to the scene, with personnel from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The FBI deployment also included Elijah Steimle, a special agent from Wisconsin with a background investigating “complex financial crimes,” who was on rotation to support Minneapolis immigration enforcement.
The federal prosecution of Sosa-Celis and Aljorna is not the only case in which Getsch has investigated alleged assaults on immigrations agents. Last December, Getsch drew up the affidavit to support charges against a Nigerian man who overstayed a student visa and his girlfriend who are accused of driving off with a Homeland Security agent trapped in their vehicle.
The repositioning of experienced agents to support immigration enforcement comes at a cost, Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told Raw Story.
“As a result of these actions, Americans are less safe today, full stop,” Lewis said. “Every FBI agent reassigned to immigration enforcement is one less agent investigating terrorism cases, crimes against children by nihilistic violent extremist groups, and lone actor plots to conduct acts of mass violence.”
‘Complex cases’
Last summer, in addition to the assassination of the Hortmans, Minneapolis was the site of a mass shooting targeting school children at a Catholic church, resulting in the deaths of two boys, ages 8 and 10.
The perpetrator, Robin Westman, who took her own life, was reportedly immersed in online communities that promote misanthropy, celebrate mass shooters and reward perpetrators of extreme violence and exploitation.
“Compounding this resourcing shift is the loss of institutional knowledge within the bureau,” Lewis said.
“These are complex cases that require subject matter expertise, and the loss of experienced personnel over the last year has exacerbated the issue.
“Foreign terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaida are strategic actors who will undoubtedly seek to leverage these opportunities to conduct attacks in the homeland.
“Meanwhile, domestic violent extremist networks on the right continue to take advantage of the permissive environment afforded them, spurred on by incendiary and dehumanizing rhetoric from official government Twitter accounts.”
The FBI’s Minneapolis office declined to comment.
‘A bloody gash’
When ICE agents ran the license plate number on Aljorna’s car on Jan. 14, the man whose name came up was nine years older, five inches shorter, and 44 pounds lighter.
But Aljorna, according to a court filing by his lawyer, had come to the U.S. illegally while fleeing “turmoil and danger” in Venezuela. Sosa-Celis also came to the U.S. illegally from Venezuela but was granted temporary protected status, according to his lawyer.
Both men drove for Door Dash. The two men told the FBI and state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators they generally worked at night, believing they were less likely to encounter ICE, according to the affidavit Getsch helped write.
In addition to facing deportation proceedings, two days after the shooting, Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were federally charged with aiding and abetting assault of a deportation officer.
Raw Story’s account of the events of Jan. 14 comes from cross-referencing court documents in three cases, along with a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension press release.
Based on the affidavit supporting criminal charges, an unidentified ICE agent told the FBI that while he was tussling with Aljorna, Sosa-Celis started hitting him in the face with a broom handle, then handed the broom to Aljorna, who also struck him with the handle.
The ICE agent also told the FBI “a third Hispanic male” who has not been located hit him with a snow shovel.
The ICE agent told the FBI that as a result of shielding himself from the broom strikes, the palm of his hand was cut. The affidavit states that the FBI reviewed a photograph that showed “a bloody gash that is consistent with this injury.”
Based on Getsch’s testimony in federal court in St. Paul on Jan. 21, a magistrate judge found probable cause to sustain the charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna.
Both men deny striking the ICE agent with a broom handle or a snow shovel.
Gretsch’s testimony reflected that the agent who shot Sosa-Celis was the only witness who claimed he was attacked, according to a court filing by the defendant’s lawyer.
Aljorna’s lawyer said that Aljorna’s wife and Sosa-Celis’ girlfriend, who witnessed the altercation from the doorway 10 feet away, did not corroborate the ICE agent’s claim that the two men attacked him.
Surveillance video from the city of Minneapolis likewise does not show the men assaulting the ICE agent, the lawyer said.
The filing by Aljorna’s lawyer raises the possibility that the ICE agent’s “claims of being assaulted with a broom or shovel are not credible and were in fact made up to create a justification for [the agent’s] use of deadly force that did not exist.”
The evidence that Aljorna engaged in any act of violence “comes from a witness with a powerful motive to create a false narrative to justify why he shot at two unarmed men running away from him at a distance of 10 feet,” the lawyer said.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has opened a use-of-force investigation on the ICE agent, at the request of Minneapolis Police.
The state law enforcement agents have been rebuffed in their efforts to interview the ICE agent and have not learned his identity, the state agency said.
The FBI has refused to share information from its initial investigation, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said.
‘SA Getsch did not know’
In some respects, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has outflanked the FBI.
Getsch and a colleague, Special Agent Timothy G. Schanz, wrote in their affidavit that “law enforcement on scene were unable to locate any shell casing or bullet impact with[in] the subject residence.”
Federal agents scuffle with protesters in Minneapolis. REUTERS/Tim Evans
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension obtained a search warrant and returned to the house a week after the shooting. Personnel recovered a shell casing and bullet, along with a broom.
The state agency has pledged to continue its investigation. Once it is complete, the agency said, it will present its findings without recommendation to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, for possible prosecution.
But in one key respect, the state agency remains at a disadvantage: Investigators don’t have access to the suspect in the shooting.
When Getsch took the witness stand during Sosa-Celis’ detention hearing, his lawyer pressed the special agent for information about the shooter and the other ICE agent involved in the pursuit.
The lawyer’s remarks emphasized how the ICE agents whose pursuit resulted in a man being shot are not themselves being investigated.
The lawyer wrote: “SA Getsch did not know how old they were, how much law enforcement training and experience they had, how long they had been working for ICE, what directives they had been given in terms of operations in Minneapolis, or how much firearms training they had.”
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