Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison held a press conference yesterday to announce 2nd degree assault charges filed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Christian J. Castro, 52.
The felony charges stem from an attempted arrest on January 14th, 2026, of a man, Alfredo Aljorna, 26, who agent Castro believed was wanted on immigration violations. During the arrest attempt agent Castro shot and injured Julio Sosa-Celis, 24, who physically obstructed the arrest and helped free Aljorna.
The incident
Agent Castro was conducting targeted immigration enforcement in Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge. He located a vehicle belonging to a wanted immigration violator and attempted to stop the car believing the Castro was the wanted person.
Aljorna fled agent Castro in the motor vehicle, refusing to stop for approximately 20 minutes before crashing his car near his residence in North Minneapolis. Some of the remaining incident was captured on a Minneapolis public safety camera and can be viewed here.
Aljorna then fled on foot towards his home where Sosa-Celis, who Aljorna had called during the chase, was waiting in the front yard. Aljorna slipped and fell near the front porch of his house. Agent Castro, more than twice the age of both Aljorna and Sosa-Celis caught up to Aljorna and began wrestling with them in an attempt to handcuff Ajorna. Aljorna physically resisted and Sosa-Celis physically intervened to free Aljorna from agent Castro. Once free, Aljorna and Sosa-Celis retreated toward the front door out of camera view when agent Castro apparently fired one shot striking Sosa-Celis in the leg.
The camera view of the incident is from about a half a block away at night, making it difficult to verify exactly what took place during the struggle – including if others from the house had come out and were adjacent to the struggle which would heighten agent Castro’s concern about being overpowered and assaulted. The video also doesn’t provide any audio of what was being said or by whom. It does appear that just before Aljorna broke free, agent Castro had been on his back and Aljorna was on top. It is also apparent that agent Castro’s shoe came off during the struggle, as he had to put it back on after Aljandro broke free. The incident on the ground lasted approximately 20 seconds, which might seem brief until you are the officer in the struggle.
Additional ICE agents arrived and made entry into the residence to arrest Aljorna and Sosa-Celis for assaulting agent Castro. ICE agents learned that Aljorna was not the man agent Castro had believed he was. However, the fleeing, obstruction and alleged assaults against agent Castro warranted Aljorna and Sosa-Celis’s arrests.
The investigation
The FBI and the Minnesota BCA both responded to the scene to conduct an investigation into the officer involved shooting. A short time into the investigation the FBI informed the BCA that it would be carrying out the investigation alone and would not be sharing evidence or information with the BCA. I wrote about this development and possible reasons why – predominantly Moriarty’s track record of overzealous and politically motivated charging decisions involving police use of force – in a previous article found here.
For context of the atmosphere surrounding this incident in North Minneapolis, this was the night that throngs of agitators descended on the scene and overpowered law enforcement security efforts. It became so chaotic that some federal agent cars had to be abandoned near the scene, whereby the crowd violently broke into at least one of the cars, ripping a secured gun vault out of the rear and stealing law enforcement firearms and ballistic vests.
Original charges dropped
Aljorna and Sosa-Celis were charged with assault in federal court, but after further investigation the US Attorney’s Office ended up dropping the charges because of what it concluded was evidence that was “materially inconsistent with the allegations.”
One of the main issues was that agent Castro alleged that during the struggle Sosa-Celis and another man had come out of the house and had been striking agent Castro with a shovel and a broom. The video shows Sosa-Celis throw down the shovel before agent Castro reached the house, and it’s unclear from the video if he or anyone else had a broom during the struggle. Agent Castro also alleged he was in a physical struggle with Aljandro for several minutes, but the video shows it lasted 20 seconds.
In agent Castro’s defense, those who want to suggest his statements were outright lies have likely never been in a physical fight with two men half their age, alone, on the frozen ground of a dark Minneapolis sidewalk. Time and specifics can become confused very quickly. We also don’t know from the video if others had come out on the porch, whether anyone had a broom or another shovel, whether those items were being used in a threatening or assaultive manner, or whether verbal threats were being made.
Nonetheless the inconsistencies in agent Castro’s statement led to the dropped charges, and the announcement by ICE that agent Castro and others were under internal investigation. This is a proper response and should have disarmed allegations by local authorities that the federal government was whitewashing the incident.
More federal transparency needed
More transparency on the part of federal authorities as to the process being followed and the outcome of the various investigations surrounding Operation Metro Surge, would benefit everyone. Transparency would eliminate the cloud of secrecy that currently exists and remove opportunities for speculation. More importantly it would eliminate opportunities for local prosecutors to suggest they had to act in the absence of action from the federal government.
Federal authorities should describe the standard operating procedure for investigations of federal agents, provide regular updates, and then issue a report detailing the outcome of the investigation with justification for the resolution.
Moriarty charges agent Castro
Despite acknowledging that her office does not have any of the evidence or statements taken by the FBI during its investigation, Moriarty issued a detailed complaint and warrant charging agent Castro with four counts of 2nd degree assault involving a firearm and one count of falsely reporting a crime, a misdemeanor. (I’m certain Hennepin County would be hard pressed to come up with more than a handful of cases where the county attorney has ever charged out falsely reporting a crime – this was unnecessarily gratuitous).
Agent Castro is not in custody, and no information was shared during the press conference about why a warrant rather than a summons was issued. It seems difficult to believe that if local authorities approached the Department of Homeland Security with a summons for agent Castro to appear in court, that the summons would be ignored.
Moriarty’s office put out an informational video detailing the process that local prosecutors must use to charge and prosecute a federal agent. The video is shared here.
In summary, agent Castro will have the opportunity to make a motion to remove the case to federal court. A federal judge will consider a number of issues and decide whether the case will be tried in federal court or returned to state court. Either way, attorneys from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office will prosecute the case, not the US Attorney, according to Moriarty. If tried in federal court, the jury pool would be from a much larger geographical area in Minnesota, not just Hennepin County. Moriarty also made the point that since the charges originated in her office, any conviction would not be subject to a federal pardon.
See no evil
While it aggressively pursued charges against agent Castro, it’s troubling to see that Moriarty’s office put zero effort into considering charges against Aljorna for felony fleeing in a motor vehicle (a serious crime that far too often results in injury to innocent motorists), or for Sosa-Celis for obstructing Aljorna’s arrest with force. This development only further solidifies the message to the people of Hennepin County that no one has to follow the lawful commands of law enforcement. It is a profoundly damaging message to send, especially from a lead prosecutor.
Moriarty also noted in her press conference that both Aljorna and Sosa-Celis were in the United States lawfully. However, the full details per the Department of Homeland Security, indicate that both men originally entered the country illegally from Venezuela, but were given temporary protected status in 2024 by the Biden Administration.
Takeaway
As I’ve opined on several occasions, I don’t believe this trend of local prosecutors charging federal agents for on duty actions is a positive development. There are long established processes federal authorities have used to investigate and hold accountable agents who are suspected of committing a crime.
The lack of transparency by federal authorities relevant to Operation Metro Surge has given some local prosecutors the opportunity to allege they have to act in order to preserve justice.
I don’t agree with the opportunity being created or the opportunity being taken advantage of. Unfortunately, there are several federal agents who have served our country honorably for decades who are now being treated like pawns in an ugly political battle – a battle where there will be no winners.
