‘As we were closing the door they shot him,’ a woman tells 911 in a livestream
“While Sosa-Celis and law enforcement were in a struggle on the ground, two subjects came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle,” the official federal statement said. The statement goes on to say that Sosa-Celis then began striking an officer with a shovel or broom stick.
According to the DHS statement, the officer, fearing for his life and safety, then “fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” after which the three men ran into the house.
The
Washington Post interviewed Sosa-Celis’s mother, Alicia Celis, who said her son told her that the man who was pursued by federal agents was actually Sosa-Celis’s friend, one of the three men arrested.
Facebook livestream of 911 call and observer video
According to Celis, Sosa-Celis opened the door to let his friend inside, and as Sosa-Celis went to close the door, an ICE officer shot him in the leg, reported the
Post.
A Facebook livestream video, which appears to show the moments after the man was shot from the perspective of his wife and other people inside the house, partly lines up with Sosa-Celis’s account. The video was published by an account by the name of Lachamaka Mendoza and is timestamped to Wednesday 6:51 p.m., the exact time Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said local police started receiving 911 calls about the shooting.
In the video, at least five people, including one small child, are in a house while law enforcement lights flash outside. They speak on the phone in Spanish to what sounds like a 911 operator, saying that someone has been shot in the leg by “guys from ICE.”
“Please help, we have kids,” one person said.
A woman then tells the operator: “It was ICE, they were chasing my husband for like half an hour and they were trying to crash into him. He got to the house and as we were closing the door they shot him.”
Another woman adds: “Tell them that they shot the door.” It is not clear from the video whether she meant that the agents shot through the doorway or at a door.
The 911 call suggests that the agent shot at the man as he was trying to escape into the house, which would contradict the Department of Homeland Security account that the federal immigration agent fired a shot defensively.
