Fiscales federales despedidos después de investigar a un oficial de ICE por delitos contra los derechos civiles en un tiroteo en Minnesota, dicen las fuentes - CBS News

A federal prosecutor in Minnesota was fired after investigating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer for possible civil rights crimes connected to the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant, four sources told CBS News.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Evans had been looking into ICE officer Christian Castro over the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis earlier this year. The Justice Department charged Castro this week with making false statements about the incident, but that indictment remains sealed.

Evans's firing came even as the case moved forward. ProPublica reported this week that Evans had told attorneys for Sosa-Celis and other victims to prepare for a limited outcome before he was removed from the case. The sequence raises questions about whether the prosecution will continue in the same direction without him.

The case touches directly on how federal civil rights laws apply to immigration enforcement officers when someone is shot. The Venezuelan man at the center of it was not a suspect in a crime when the shooting occurred, according to the reporting.

The indictment against Castro stays sealed for now, meaning the full scope of the charges is not yet public. Federal civil rights cases against law enforcement officers are rare, and the prosecutors willing to bring them are rarer still.