ICE Officer Who Dodged Extradition To Minnesota Arrested By MN Cops One Day Before His *Federal* Criminal Court Appearance

I love everything about this. I love the way this ICE officer was picked up. I love the fact that his lawyer claims an arrest is the same thing as “surrendering.” And I especially love the fact that this officer is in state custody only a day prior to scheduled court appearance to face federal criminal charges.

The ICE officer is Christian Castro. Castro was one of many, many ICE officers sent to Minneapolis to wage revenge on behalf of Trump. The administration knew it couldn’t just order federal officers to start shooting people in the street, even if they had the gall to impede ICE efforts or, you know, vote Democrat.

But Trump and his posse did know that flooding the streets with federal officers most likely would result in people being shot in the streets by immigration officers. Two murders have already been committed in Minneapolis. Multiple other assaults have also happened. As for Officer Castro, he shot Julio Sosa-Cellis through the closed door of his house. Then he started lying about what happened.

The charges against both men were dropped, and federal officials said they were instead investigating the agents. Video footage of the incident obtained by The New York Times did not show a sustained attack with a shovel and more broadly contradicted the agent’s claim of a roughly three-minute beating. 

Having discovered the federal government was mostly uninterested in punishing federal officers, Minnesota law enforcement secured an indictment against Castro for assault. An arrest warrant was obtained. At some point, Castro turned himself in to Texas law enforcement. He was jailed and Minnesota tried (unsuccessfully) to have him extradited to Minnesota to face charges, ultimately being rejected by none other than Texas governor Greg Abbott.

With the extradition waiver rejected, Castro was allowed to go free. But that didn’t last long. Less than a week after being released from jail, Castro was hit with federal charges related to the shooting, albeit charges that are far less serious than felonious assault. The feds want Castro brought in to face “false statement” charges which are far less likely to see the officer jailed again.

Irony of ironies, my friends. Castro hasn’t even had a chance to start making false statements again. He was picked up by Minnesota law enforcement only a day before he scheduled to appear in (federal) court, as the the Minneapolis Tribune reports.

Minnesota law enforcement arrested an ICE agent Wednesday in the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge last winter, culminating months of delays and legal maneuvers in efforts to bring him to the state to answer to charges.

Christian Castro, 52, was stopped by agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in a traffic stop near his attorney’s office in Minneapolis and taken to the Hennepin County Jail, where he is currently being held. Castro was scheduled to make a federal court appearance on Friday and will now make a first appearance in Hennepin County District Court on Thursday afternoon.

There’s a lot to enjoy here, including the fact that Castro was apprehended during what was clearly a pretextual stop. Yeah, just sit with that for awhile, every cop ever. The BCA knew who it was looking for. Castro had to return to the scene of the crime to face federal charges and ended up getting picked up by the locals for a state warrant. Hilarious!

Of course, Castro’s lawyer is trying to spin this:

Daniel Gerdts, who is representing Castro, said his surrender was prearranged and voluntary.

“The BCA agent took him into custody, as planned,” Gerdts said.

Um, when people surrender, they tend to do it in person at a law enforcement office. Getting picked up during a traffic stop (even one that was obviously pretextual) isn’t “surrender.” It may be that Castro planned to surrender after his federal court appearance (if he still felt he needed to), but I can pretty much guarantee he didn’t plan on being stopped by locals prior to an appearance in a case featuring far less serious criminal charges.

So, the Hennepin County DA will have the first laugh, if not the last one. Texas’s governor may have tried to keep Minnesota from going after a violent ICE officer, but the officer’s federal trouble complicated things to the point where the (local) law got its man anyway. And, since the charges brought against Castro by both levels of the government don’t overlap, there’s no double jeopardy claim to be made. With any luck Castro will get to spend time in both levels of prison.