MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Christian Castro, the ICE agent charged in the January shooting of a Venezuelan man during Operation Metro Surge, was booked into the Hennepin County jail Tuesday afternoon, months after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to sign paperwork allowing his extradition.
Castro, 52, was received at the jail at 4:03 p.m. from McAllen, Texas, according to the Hennepin County jail roster.
He is being held on the original state warrant out of Hennepin County District Court, which charges him with four felony counts of second degree assault with a dangerous weapon and a misdemeanor count of falsely reporting a crime.
Bail was set at $200,000, and Castro is scheduled to make his first court appearance on those state charges Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said agents arrested Castro around 2:15 p.m. near 2nd Avenue South and South 3rd Street in Minneapolis on the state warrant.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement that Castro was taken into custody by the BCA and thanked the agency for its collaboration.
She said Abbott's attempt to shield Castro from accountability had failed and that prosecutors look forward to commencing their case.
The state charges stem from a shooting on Jan. 14, when Castro is accused of firing his service weapon through the closed front door of a north Minneapolis duplex, striking Julio Cesar Sosa Celis in the leg as officers carried out Operation Metro Surge, a federal immigration enforcement push in the Twin Cities.
Several people, including children, were inside the home at the time.
Castro was arrested in Texas in late May on the Hennepin County warrant and held at the Cameron County jail while Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison pressed Abbott to sign extradition papers on the state case.
Abbott declined, and Castro was released Aug. 27.
Days after his release, federal prosecutors brought a separate case against Castro.
A federal grand jury indicted him on Sept. 2 on six counts of making materially false statements to the FBI, stemming from what Castro told an FBI agent on the night of the Jan. 14 shooting.
According to the indictment, Castro said two men had attacked him with a broom and a snow shovel before he opened fire. Surveillance video and witness accounts later contradicted that account, and federal prosecutors dropped assault charges they had filed against the two men.
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