The mayor of Minneapolis and the local elected officials have called on the administration of US President Donald Trump to “embrace the truth” and guarantee an impartial investigation into an immigration agent’s killing of a city resident earlier this week.
The appeal on Friday came a day after an independent state investigatory body said it had been cut out of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
The unusual move raised concerns of bias in the federal government’s investigation into one of its own agents.
“This is not a time to hide from the facts,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said during a news conference. “This is a time to embrace them, making sure that we’re pushing for transparency every step of the way.”
Trump administration officials had swiftly claimed the incident, which took place in a residential Minneapolis neighbourhood on Wednesday, was an act of “domestic terrorism”, and that the involved agent was acting in self-defence as the victim tried to run him over.
But video evidence has cast doubt over the federal government’s narrative.
