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Federal officials have said that the officer who shot Good acted in self-defence and that she was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled her car forward towards him, a claim state officials disputed.
The quick pronouncement by administration officials before any meaningful investigation could be completed has raised concerns about the federal government’s determination to conduct a thorough review of the chain of events precipitating the shooting.
People rally in New York to demand an end to immigration deployments after the fatal shooting of Renee Good.Credit: Getty Images
Minnesota officials have also raised alarm after federal officials blocked state investigators from accessing evidence and declared that Minnesota has no jurisdiction to investigate the killing.
The departures also prompted renewed concern about the federal investigation into the shooting, which has prompted protests nationwide and drawn renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown in US cities.
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The Minnesota inquiry was only one factor in the decision of the civil rights lawyers to leave the department. The prosecutors, veteran lawyers who had served across presidential administrations, had grown disillusioned with the direction of the division, whose priorities had been reshaped to align with Trump, according to the sources.
A Justice Department official confirmed the departures. Several of the civil rights prosecutors accepted an early retirement offer from the Trump administration, some of the sources said. The department official said the lawyers had asked to take part in the early retirement program well before the Minnesota shooting.
The resignations are the latest sign of tumult in the Justice Department under Trump, which has fired and expelled dozens of career officials and pursued investigations of Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty, the chief state prosecutor in Minneapolis, said on the departures at the Justice Department were an indication that career prosecutors were “not being allowed to do their job”.
“And that’s because of politics, not because of what actually happened here,” Moriarty said.
Reuters, AP
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