An ICE agent who was part of the federal immigration surge in Minnesota earlier this year was charged with felony second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, a Minnesota prosecutor announced Thursday. The agent, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., is accused of pointing a gun at the heads of two civilians in a vehicle, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
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This is the first case of an ICE agent facing charges related to the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which drew national outrage after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration law enforcement.
Morgan was charged Thursday with two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, one count for each victim, and there is a warrant out for his arrest, Moriarty said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the charges.
On Feb. 5, Morgan was allegedly driving a SUV with no markings when he pulled up next to another vehicle and “pointed his duty weapon directly at both victims while continuing to drive illegally on the shoulder” of a highway, she said. The driver then called 911.
For “a federal agent, our opinion is that illegally driving on a shoulder, pulling up to a car and pointing a gun at the heads of two community members who are not doing anything at the time is well beyond the scope of their authority,” she said.
The prosecutor said it appeared Morgan was attempting to bypass slower traffic when the victim “briefly moved their vehicle into the shoulder to slow him down.”
The agent then allegedly pulled up to the victim’s vehicle before opening his window and pointing his duty weapon at the driver and passenger, she said.
Minnesota State Patrol investigators interviewed Morgan the following day, she said.
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According to Moriarty, Morgan said he and his partner were driving to the Whipple Federal Building after their shift.
“He admitted that he drew his firearm after the victim’s vehicle had already rejoined the normal flow of traffic, corroborating details from interviews with the victim” as well as video of the incident, Moriarty said.
Moriarty said Morgan’s alleged behavior was “extremely dangerous.”
“Driving while pointing a weapon out of your moving vehicle at the victims who were in another moving vehicle could have led to yet another disastrous incident in a community that has already suffered too many,” she said.
The Trump administration sent 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota at the end of November for the immigration enforcement operation dubbed Metro Surge.
Amid the crackdown, immigration authorities shot and killed two U.S. citizens — Renee Good, 37, a mother of young children, and Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse at a local Veterans Affairs hospital — in separate confrontations. The killings, which were captured in videos from the scene, led to a groundswell of outrage and massive protests around the country. The deaths also drew stark criticism from both Democrats and some Republican lawmakers.
In the weeks after their deaths, Trump border czar Tom Homan arrived to take over the operation from Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who was relieved of the title and returned to his previous role as sector chief in El Centro, California. Homan in February announced the winding down of the effort, which he said had resulted in the arrests of thousands of people. Immigration arrests in and around Minneapolis have continued.
NBC News Decision Desk polling from mid-February showed that support for the the Trump administration’s immigration policies took a significant hit after the killings of Good and Pretti.
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