A network of former Department of Justice officials released a statement on Sunday criticizing the department’s handling of two fatal shootings in Minneapolis that have occurred at the hands of federal agents.
“The Justice Department has abdicated its role in seeking accountability for these fatal shootings by refusing to investigate allegations of unlawful, excessive force by federal agents in Minneapolis,” Stacey Young, executive director and founder of the Justice Connection, said in a statement.
Young said that under any previous administration, the DOJ would have launched a civil rights investigation into the use of force in the killings of Alex Pretti on Saturday and of Renee Good on Jan. 7.
“Failures like these led to the departures of senior employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the Civil Rights Division, and the FBI — adding to the loss of the institutional expertise necessary to guide the department in critical moments like these,” Young said.
Young added that “a community can only trust law enforcement” when it knows agents will be held accountable for their actions.
“But instead of pursuing those investigations, the Justice Department has publicized spurious conclusions contradicted by evidence; perverted the term ‘domestic terrorist’ by applying it to victims and protesters; boxed out state and local law enforcement; and launched investigations into conduct by victims and surviving family members instead of the agents who fired the guns,” Young said.
-ABC News’ Pierre Thomas