Hennepin County prosecutors on Monday charged ICE agent Christian Castro, 52, with four felony counts of second-degree assault and one misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime in connection with the January 14 nonfatal shooting of Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis.
Castro is the second federal officer to face criminal charges stemming from Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration's large-scale immigration enforcement campaign that deployed roughly 3,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis–St. Paul area beginning in December 2025.
The first was ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., 35, who was charged on April 16 with two counts of second-degree assault after allegedly pointing his service weapon at two civilians in a vehicle on a Minneapolis highway while off-duty, according to CNBC.
According to Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, Castro fired through the front door of a home on 24th Avenue North while pursuing a different individual — not Sosa-Celis — to the apartment duplex where both men lived.
The bullet penetrated the door, struck Sosa-Celis in the leg, and lodged in the wall of a child's bedroom, prosecutors said. Charging documents also note that Castro "suffered no demonstrable trauma to his body except for an abrasion to his left hand at the base of his thumb."
Moriarty said Castro was standing alone in the front yard when he fired and was not under any threat. "Mr. Castro fired his service weapon at the front door of the home, knowing there were people inside who presented absolutely no threat to him or anyone else," Moriarty said. A nationwide arrest warrant has been issued for Castro, with bail set at $200,000.
The case had been complicated from the start by conflicting accounts. The Department of Homeland Security initially claimed Sosa-Celis and a roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, had attacked an ICE officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle, prompting the shooting.
Federal charges against both men were dismissed with prejudice in February after the U.S. Attorney's Office said "newly discovered evidence" was "materially inconsistent" with the allegations against them.
ICE Director Todd Lyons confirmed at the time that two officers appeared to have made untruthful statements under oath and that a joint probe with the Justice Department had been opened, CNN reported.
City-released surveillance footage made public in April further undermined the government's original account, showing one man discarding a shovel before any physical contact occurred with ICE agents.
Moriarty confirmed Monday that the January 14 traffic stop was also a case of mistaken identity — Sosa-Celis, who held Temporary Protected Status, was legally in the United States when agents stopped him after a license plate search incorrectly flagged him as undocumented.
The Sosa-Celis shooting occurred exactly one week after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good while she sat in her car during protests against the administration's immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.
A third shooting — the January 24 killing of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti by CBP agents — also sparked nationwide outrage and bipartisan calls for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was ultimately fired by President Donald Trump in March 2026, as per NPR.
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