(NewsNation) — Mayor Jacob Frey has called for the FBI to change course and work alongside state agencies to conduct a “fair investigation” into the shooting death of a Minneapolis motorist by a federal officer.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Macklin Good on Wednesday. Federal officials claim she was trying to run over officers, but many Minnesota lawmakers maintain she was just trying to leave the situation.
“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law. This is not a time to hide from the facts. This is a time to embrace them,” Frey said.
The U.S. attorney’s office on Wednesday barred the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from assisting in a federal investigation into the shooting, Drew Evans with the BCA said in a statement.
Evans characterized the decision as a change of heart on the government’s part.
“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands,” Evans wrote. “As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation.”
If there is nothing to hide from local investigators, Frey said at a news conference Friday, “Why not include them in the process?”
Trump admin has ‘already come to a conclusion’: Minneapolis mayor
Frey accused the Trump administration and its Department of Justice of having “already come to a conclusion,” referencing multiple federal officials who have labeled Macklin Good as a “domestic terrorist” and have justified her killing as self-defense.
“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation. And even if they haven’t, there is the appearance that there is some conclusion drawn from the very beginning,” he said.
Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city council member, said widely circulated videos of the shooting disprove “the false narrative from the federal government.”
Chavez, among other speakers during the Friday briefing, called for the arrest, prosecution and firing of the ICE officer behind Macklin Good’s death.
‘I dropped an f-bomb, they killed somebody’: Minneapolis mayor
On Friday, Frey said he stands by his statements calling out the Trump administration’s ICE operations in the city.
“I dropped an f-bomb, they killed somebody. Which one of those is more inflammatory?” he asked.
Frey, a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, earlier this week told federal immigration officials to “get the f— out“ of his city.