The 12-Second Truth: How Minneapolis Footage Exposed ICE Agents' Fabricated Account of a Shooting

On January 14, 2026, a federal immigration agent shot 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg outside his north Minneapolis duplex. Within hours, the Department of Homeland Security had a story: three men had "ambushed" the agent, beating him with a snow shovel and broomstick for roughly three minutes in an "attempted murder of federal law enforcement" [1]. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeated the account publicly [2].

On April 6, the city of Minneapolis released surveillance camera footage of the encounter. It lasted approximately 12 seconds. The shovel was on the ground the entire time [3].

The gap between those two accounts — sworn testimony by federal agents and what a city-owned traffic camera recorded — has triggered criminal investigations, ended federal prosecutions, and added to a growing pattern in which official descriptions of immigration enforcement actions have been contradicted by video evidence.

What ICE Claimed

In a January 14 press release, the Department of Homeland Security said that during an enforcement action in north Minneapolis, an ICE agent was "ambushed" by three men, one of whom struck the officer with a shovel or broomstick [1]. The agent, according to DHS, "fired a defensive shot to save his life" after enduring a sustained beating lasting approximately three minutes [2]. The two men later identified as Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis and Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna were branded "attempted murderers" in the release [4].

Both men were subsequently charged with assaulting a federal officer. Two ICE agents provided sworn statements supporting the account [5].

What the Footage Shows

The city-owned camera, positioned at the intersection of North Lyndale and North 24th Avenue, captured the following sequence [3][6]:

A car driven by Aljorna collides with a snowbank after a 15-to-20-minute chase that began when ICE agents attempted a traffic stop on Interstate 94 [7]. Aljorna exits and runs toward his duplex, where Sosa-Celis stands holding a snow shovel. As the ICE agent approaches, Sosa-Celis drops the shovel on the ground. Aljorna slips, and the agent jumps on him. Sosa-Celis appears to try to pull the two apart so both men can get inside. The agent fires as the men turn to run into the residence [3].

The shovel is visible on the ground throughout the physical encounter and does not appear to be used as a weapon at any point [6]. The confrontation lasts roughly 12 seconds, not three minutes [3]. Two men — not three — are involved in the scuffle [6].

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara told the New York Times: "It sounds like an unarmed person got shot running away" [3]. Mayor Jacob Frey said the video made "crystal clear" that "the federal government's account of what happened simply does not match the facts" [3].

The Mistaken Identity

The FBI's investigation revealed an additional fact: the entire enforcement action was based on a case of mistaken identity [7]. ICE agents ran the license plates of a car and found it registered to Joffre Barrera, who was flagged as being in the country without authorization. However, Aljorna — not Barrera — was driving the car, which he had purchased off Facebook Marketplace for $750 [7].

The agents claimed Aljorna's physical description matched Barrera's driver's license. But Barrera is listed as 5-foot-2 and 128 pounds, while Aljorna is 5-foot-7 and 172 pounds [7]. The person they were actually looking for was never in the vehicle.

Sosa-Celis, the man who was shot, was not a target of the enforcement action at all. He was standing outside his own home [7].

Who Was Shot and What Followed

Sosa-Celis, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national, and Aljorna, 26, are longtime friends who worked as DoorDash delivery drivers [8]. According to DHS, both entered the country without authorization in May 2023 [8].

Sosa-Celis sustained a gunshot wound to his thigh. The bullet passed through a wall and lodged near a children's playpen used as a crib inside the residence [3]. The wound was described as non-life-threatening [6].

Both men were initially charged with assaulting a federal officer. In mid-February, U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen requested the charges be dismissed with prejudice, citing "newly discovered evidence" that was "materially inconsistent with the allegations in the complaint affidavit" [4][5]. The DOJ acknowledged that two ICE officers "appear to have made untruthful statements" about the incident [5].

Sosa-Celis's attorney, Robin Wolpert, said her client is "determined to seek justice and hold the ICE officer accountable for his unlawful conduct" [8]. Both men were released from custody under court order, though ICE briefly took them back into custody for alleged immigration violations before releasing them again under a separate court order [8].

The Legal Standard for Deadly Force

Federal regulations at 8 CFR § 287.8 state that deadly force by immigration officers is permitted only when the officer has "reasonable grounds to believe that such force is necessary to protect the designated immigration officer or other persons from the imminent danger of death or serious physical injury" [9][10].

ICE's own Firearms and Use of Force Handbook, last updated in 2023, requires that agents "use force only when no reasonably effective, safe and feasible alternative appears to exist" [10]. The policy mandates that officers use the minimum force necessary and escalate only when warranted by the "actions, apparent intentions, and apparent capabilities" of the subject [9].

Specific to firearms: agents may not discharge a weapon at a moving vehicle unless a person inside is threatening deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself, or the vehicle poses an imminent lethal threat and no alternative — including moving out of its path — exists [11].

In this case, there was no vehicle involved in the shooting itself. The question is whether two men trying to enter their own home — one of whom had dropped a shovel before the scuffle began — constituted an imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the agent.

What Use-of-Force Experts Say

The Star Tribune consulted five use-of-force experts about the Minneapolis ICE shootings. None said the available evidence proved the January 14 shooting was justified [12].

The footage raises tactical questions about why the agent, who was alone, chose to physically engage two men rather than wait for backup. Use-of-force doctrine generally holds that officers should avoid creating the conditions that force them to escalate [12].

However, a steelman case for the agent's conduct does exist. The agent had been involved in a foot pursuit of a fleeing suspect who had led officers on a 15-to-20-minute car chase, which itself can indicate a willingness to endanger others [7]. The agent may have feared the men would flee inside and destroy evidence or access weapons. In the compressed timeframe of a physical struggle — even 12 seconds — an officer may perceive a threat level that is not fully captured on grainy surveillance footage from a fixed camera position at a distance.

One law enforcement ethics professor and firearms instructor argued that even on "generous assumptions," the shooting could be considered justified if the agent believed the men's resistance during the physical struggle created a lethal threat [12]. The DHS position is that the agent acted defensively.

These arguments, however, do not address the central evidentiary problem: the sworn statements describing a three-minute beating with weapons did not occur as described [3][6].

A Pattern of Contradicted Accounts

The Sosa-Celis shooting is not an isolated case. Video evidence has contradicted initial federal accounts in at least five immigration enforcement shootings since late 2025 [13][14].

Renee Macklin Good (January 7, 2026, Minneapolis): DHS Secretary Noem described Good's death as an "act of domestic terrorism," claiming the 37-year-old American woman "attempted to run [agents] over and rammed them with her vehicle." Multiple bystander videos showed Good sitting in her parked SUV telling an agent "I'm not mad at you" before another agent grabbed at her door [15][16].

Alex Pretti (January 24, 2026, Minneapolis): Federal officials said Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, was armed and posed a lethal threat. Video analysis by NBC News and Bellingcat showed an agent had confiscated Pretti's gun before he was shot while on his knees, surrounded by agents [17][18].

Silverio Villegas González (September 2025, Chicago): DHS said federal agents were pursuing a man who drove at officers and dragged one with his car. Body camera footage from local police contradicted this account [14].

All three Minneapolis shootings occurred during Operation Metro Surge, which DHS described as the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history [19].

Source: NBC News / American Immigration Council

Data as of Apr 6, 2026CSV

Operation Metro Surge by the Numbers

Operation Metro Surge was announced on December 4, 2025, and expanded on January 6, 2026, deploying up to 3,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area — five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department [19][20].

From December 2025 to mid-March 2026, the operation produced approximately 4,030 arrests in Minnesota [21]. Data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Intercept revealed the composition of those arrests: 2,532 — or 63 percent — involved people with no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges [21]. Only 805 had criminal convictions, and 523 had pending charges [21]. Roughly 35 percent of arrests were described as "collateral" — people encountered during operations targeting someone else [21].

Source: The Intercept / FOIA Data

Data as of Mar 30, 2026CSV

The White House characterized the operation as removing "the worst of the worst criminal illegals" from Minnesota [22]. DHS press releases highlighted arrests of individuals with violent criminal records [23]. The FOIA data suggests those cases represented a minority of the overall enforcement activity.

The operation's nightly hotel costs for lodging agents reached $360,000, with a month-long stay costing taxpayers an estimated $10 million [20]. Emerging economic analyses put the broader damage to Minneapolis at $203.1 million, with $106 million in lost wages across the Twin Cities [20].

Oversight and Accountability

Multiple oversight mechanisms have jurisdiction over the January 14 shooting. The U.S. Attorney's Office opened a criminal probe into whether the two ICE agents committed perjury [5]. The FBI is conducting its own investigation [7]. The DHS Office of Inspector General has authority to review the incident [24]. ICE's internal affairs office has placed both agents on administrative leave, and they face potential termination or criminal prosecution [5].

At the state level, however, access has been contested. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension initially reached an agreement with the FBI for a joint investigation into the earlier Renee Good shooting, but the FBI reversed course and blocked state investigators from participating [25]. Attorney General Keith Ellison responded: "There needs to be a situation where the feds are not just investigating the feds" [25].

Minnesota sued the Department of Justice and DHS in March 2026, seeking a court order to compel federal authorities to share evidence from the Good and Pretti shootings [26]. That lawsuit, filed by Ellison alongside the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, also challenges the constitutionality of Operation Metro Surge itself [27].

The Minneapolis City Council, with 11 of 13 members signing a joint statement, demanded that ICE leave the city "immediately" [24]. Congress has held hearings on the shootings, with lawmakers from both parties calling for accountability, though no legislation has passed [28].

The structural obstacles to accountability are significant. Federal officers are shielded by qualified immunity and by Supreme Court rulings that restrict when individuals can sue federal officials for constitutional violations [29]. The Brookings Institution has noted that ICE's operational expansion has outpaced its oversight infrastructure, recommending mandatory body-worn cameras, duty-to-intervene policies, enhanced hiring standards, and the removal of absolute immunity protections [29].

The Credibility Gap

The Minneapolis footage arrives in a political and institutional context shaped by repeated discrepancies between official federal accounts and documentary evidence. In the Good, Pretti, and Sosa-Celis cases — all within the same city, during the same operation, within a single month — federal authorities provided initial narratives that were later undermined by video [3][15][17].

Federal prosecutors in the Sosa-Celis case did not watch the surveillance video until nearly three weeks after filing charges against the two men [3]. The footage had been available to federal authorities within hours of the shooting [6].

The two agents who provided false sworn testimony remain on administrative leave. No criminal charges have been filed against them as of April 7, 2026 [5]. The agent who fired the shot has not been publicly identified, and state investigators say federal authorities have not shared the agent's identity [3].

Sosa-Celis's attorney has indicated plans to pursue legal claims against the federal government [8]. The legal path forward — whether through a Bivens action (a type of federal civil rights lawsuit), an administrative claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, or state criminal prosecution — remains uncertain, each carrying its own procedural hurdles and doctrinal limitations [29].

What is not uncertain is what the camera recorded: a 12-second encounter, a shovel on the ground, and a man shot while running into his home.