Evidence contradicts Trump immigration officials' accounts of violent encounters

By Renee Hickman, Ted Hesson, Brad Heath and Kristina Cooke, Reuters

Photo: OCTAVIO JONES / AFP

US President Donald Trump's top immigration officials have repeatedly made statements after violent encounters involving federal agents - including two fatal shootings of US citizens in Minneapolis this month - that were later contradicted by evidence, a Reuters review found.

Trump officials quickly painted the two recently shot dead - Renee Good and Alex Pretti - as aggressors and said the shootings were justified. But video and other evidence soon emerged that contrasted sharply with these accounts, fueling questions about the credibility of federal officials and doubts about their willingness to fully investigate these and other incidents.

The Reuters review included these two incidents and four others in recent months that, collectively, show a pattern in which officials rushed to defend immigration officers without waiting for key facts to emerge - in what former immigration officials called a clear break with past practice for federal agencies in such situations.

These initial representations have been challenged by video footage or other evidence, sometimes in court. In one non-lethal shooting in Minnesota, court documents emerged showing the incident began with a case of mistaken identity. A death in a detention center that the US Department of Homeland Security described as an attempted suicide was later ruled a homicide by a county medical examiner.

"They are trying to control a narrative from the very start, and they don't seem to care when they're proven wrong," said David Lapan, who was the DHS press secretar