Washington [US], January 28: Republican candidate Chris Madel says he is ending his campaign for governor of Minnesota following the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal agents.
Madel said late on Monday he would step down from the campaign, citing the negative impact of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "Operation Metro Surge" on the city of Minneapolis, where two people have been killed by federal agents.
"I cannot support the national Republicans' stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so," Madel said in a nearly 11-minute video shared on X.
Madel, a lawyer who represented an ICE agent who shot dead US citizen Renee Good in Minnesota in early January, said he supports deporting the "worst of the worst" from the state, but Operation Metro Surge had gone "far beyond its stated focus on public safety threats" since it began in December.
"United States citizens, particularly those of colour, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That is wrong. ICE has authorised its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that needs only be signed by a Border Patrol agent. That's unconstitutional, and that's wrong," Madel says in the video.
Madel said the party had made it "nearly impossible" for Republicans like him to win a statewide election in Minnesota, even as the Democratic Party in the state is embroiled in a sweeping corruption scandal.
Madel's decision comes just days after US Border Patrol agents shot dead Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, while he was filming an Operation Metro Surge patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday.
The shooting unleashed a wave of outrage across the US, as well as questions about how it was handled by top White House officials such as Kristi Noem, who heads the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Noem and her department - which oversees ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - were quick to place the blame on Pretti in the aftermath of the shooting, who she accused of "brandishing" a weapon at Border Patrol officers and engaging in "domestic terrorism".
Pretti was a licensed gun owner and armed at the time of his killing. Video evidence shows he was not holding his gun at the time he was shot. Instead, CBP agents can be seen disarming Pretti before shooting him multiple times.
Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, told Al Jazeera that Noem and others had broken with traditional protocol following a civilian shooting.
"The response of the homeland secretary there was very offensive and off the cuff. When you have a shooting of a civilian by a law enforcement officer, there should not be comment until the facts come out," said Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007 under President George W Bush.
Source: Qatar Tribune