Why Local and State Police Rarely Investigate Federal Agents – ProPublica
FBI agents at the scene of the shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
Peter DiCampo / ProPublica
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FBI agents at the scene of the shooting death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
Peter DiCampo / ProPublica
Criminal Justice
“You’re Not Going to Investigate a Federal Officer”
It doesn’t happen often, but local law enforcement can arrest and charge federal agents. Legal experts say there’s a moral obligation to at least try to hold federal immigration officers accountable when they violate the Constitution and the law.
by Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy
February 5, 2026, 6:00 am
Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting?
“Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage.
Chief Mike Witz shook his head. “No, because it’s a federal shooting,” he said. “You’re not going to investigate a federal officer.”
His officers didn’t investigate. In their report, they didn’t even note the names of the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the scene of Silverio Villegas González’s death. Instead, they deferred to the FBI.
Local law enforcement officials also did not investigate when a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a U.S. citizen in her car in Chicago less than a month later. Or when an ICE agent in Phoenix shot a Honduran man during a traffic stop later that month.
In fact, local police did not open investigations into six of the 12 shootings by on-duty federal agents that have led to the deaths or injuries of citizens and immigrants since September, a ProPublica analysis found. In three other shooting cases, state or local police said they have opened inquiries, which they called a routine practice in those jurisdictions. And in Minnesota, where ICE and Border Patrol shot and killed two U.S. citizens and injured a Venezuelan man last month, state police have tried to conduct independent investigations only to be thwarted by the Trump administration, which has gone so far as to block officers from a scene, even when they had a judicial warrant.
In almost every instance, President Donald Trump’s administration blamed the injured and dead for the shooting within hours of the incident, raising questions about whether federal officials can fairly and objectively investigate their own. Legal experts and advocates for immigrants say this apparent lack of accountability demands that local authorities step up and exercise their power to investigate and prosecute federal agents who break state laws — from battery to murder.
“Local police and the state have gotten a free pass,” said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the co-founder and director of its Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “Residents have every right and should be demanding that, ‘Hey, state authorities, police, local police: Protect us. Arrest people who kill us, who batter us, who point guns at us and threaten and assault us without legal cause to do so.’”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXw9k7JWufI
Body camera footage shows then-Franklin Park Police Chief Mike Witz responding to his officers’ questions about whether they would investigate the shooting of a Mexican immigrant by federal agents. Obtained by ProPublica
It’s usually the opposite scenario: federal authorities coming in to investigate a troubled police department. But local authorities have investigated and charged federal agents in the past. It’s just rare and complicated. The federal supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution bars local interference with federal law enforcement officers when they act reasonably and within the scope of their duties.
But given the aggressive tactics employed by immigration agents under the Trump administration, Futterman and other legal experts said local police and prosecutors are morally obligated to at least try to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable.
“We’re in an environment right now where ICE officers are blatantly and egregiously violating the Constitution and the law,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The federal government has made it very clear that they are not going to do anything to provide any sort of accountability backstop to its officers. Unfortunately, because Congress is not taking any steps to rein ICE officers in, there really is no option other than states protecting their constituents’ rights.”
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