JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Immigration enforcement agents have shot three people this week, and state and local officials are angry. In Minnesota, where an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good on Wednesday, Governor Tim Walz decried the FBI for excluding state investigators from the case, and state and county prosecutors say they will collect evidence for their own investigation. And in Oregon, officials say they're also doing their own investigation after two people were shot and wounded by a Border Patrol officer yesterday. NPR's Martin Kaste joins us now from Portland. Hi.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, good afternoon.
SUMMERS: Martin, let's start with Minnesota and the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good. Yesterday, the state said the FBI had excluded them from the investigation. Now the state's going it alone?
KASTE: Yeah, that's what Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty announced this morning, that her agency and the state were going to collect their own evidence. She said she respects the FBI's process, but they think their investigators are crucial to this, and if it came down to it, she says, Minnesota prosecutors have the jurisdiction to bring their own charges against the agent.
SUMMERS: How common is it for local prosecutors to do their own investigation?
KASTE: Well, locals may do their own investigations. And I think what's not normal here is the way the federal officials have been publicly passing judgment on a case that's still being investigated. For instance, just today, the vice president posted a video that appears to have come from a device being held by the agent who shot Renee Good on Wednesday. It shows Good smiling and saying she's not mad at the officer. But Vance called the video evidence that the officer was in danger. So there seems to be a real disconnect right now on the basic level of what the evidence means.
SUMMERS: And then there's this second incident, which happened yesterday in Portland, where you are. What can you tell us there?
KASTE: Well, we don't have a lot of - we don't have any known video of this case. So what we're going on here is mostly from what the DHS has said in short statements. It says two people were wounded. They're Venezuelan nationals who entered the country illegally during the Biden administration, and it says they were - they had ties to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, and that's something that the Portland police chief today has confirmed. Their names are Luis David Nico Moncada - he's the driver - and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras. The DHS says Border Patrol agents approached the parked vehicle during what it calls a traffic stop and that the driver, quote, "weaponized their vehicle," end quote, and that the border patrol agent shot in self defense.
SUMMERS: Listening to that, it sounds like pretty similar wording to how DHS officials describe the shooting in Minnesota.
KASTE: Yeah, and the Minnesota situation is stoking skepticism here in Portland. Speaking about federal authorities, yesterday, the mayor here in Portland, Keith Wilson, said, quote, "there was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past." And I'll tell you also that skepticism is now reviving this summer's anti-ICE protests here. When I arrived late last night around 11 p.m., there were protesters still outside the ICE facility. I talked to John Collins. He comes by sometimes to watch the protests. He called them amped up.
JOHN COLLINS: Whether you're for ICE and what they're doing or you're against it, I think most people could agree that the tactics is getting a little much.
SUMMERS: Martin, let's end on that point, the question of tactics. In both cases, we have federal agents shooting into cars. What does the law say about that?
KASTE: Well, the standard is that the officer has to be - have an objectively reasonable perception that there's a imminent threat. That's long been the standard. What's interesting is recently, just in May, the Supreme Court amplified that a little bit in a case called Barnes v. Felix. It says you have to look beyond just the split second of decision and look at the context of the situation, taking into account perhaps what the officer did leading up to the situation, perhaps whether he or she decided to step out of the way. And if these cases make it to court, I think that could become quite relevant here, is whether this situation may in some ways have been set up.
SUMMERS: NPR's Martin Kaste, thanks so much.
KASTE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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