Video contradicted the account of Pretti's killing
Alex Pretti was holding a phone. An officer removed his handgun shortly before the shooting began. Those findings from CBS's verified video analysis contradicted central elements of the administration's initial account of his killing. The evidence available to the public did not support the story officials first presented.
That contradiction made independent access to the evidence especially important. Minnesota investigators were prevented from collecting evidence at the scene. In February, the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the FBI had formally refused to share evidence. Federal authorities controlled material that state investigators needed to examine a fatal use of federal force.
Good and Pretti faced different federal responses
Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer on January 7, 2026. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche later expressly said DOJ was not conducting a criminal investigation of the shooter. An internal agency review and state investigative efforts were separate processes, not substitutes for a DOJ criminal investigation.
DOJ also excluded Civil Rights Division prosecutors from investigating Good's killing, according to sourced reporting, despite career prosecutors volunteering to participate. The department chose not to use those prosecutors to examine the killing.
Pretti's case took a different course: DOJ opened a civil-rights investigation on January 30, 2026. That decision matters. The federal response was not a uniform refusal to investigate both deaths. But opening a federal investigation did not resolve the separate problem of state investigators being denied access.
Evidence arrived after roughly six months
Federal authorities transferred substantial evidence in July 2026, including statements, body-camera footage and Good's SUV. State investigators had waited roughly six months for key material in the two Minnesota fatal-shooting investigations.
The transfer changed what investigators could examine; it did not erase the delay. For months, the federal government controlled access to evidence about federal officers while independent state investigators sought it.
The access problem extended beyond Minnesota
After ICE officers killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, the Harris County district attorney said federal authorities were not collaborating and had not provided basic information, including the officers' identities, at the time of the July report. The agency claimed self-defense. That account remained its position; the cited reporting supplied no final legal ruling on the shooting.
The shared pattern is an accountability process constrained by federal authorities while federal officers' conduct requires scrutiny. Pretti's video record exposed a contradiction in official claims. The Minnesota evidence delays and Houston noncooperation show why independent investigation cannot depend on federal officials alone deciding what others may see and when.