MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota and federal authorities are investigating the alleged beating of a Mexican citizen by immigration officers last month, seeking to identify what caused the eight skull fractures that landed the man in the intensive care unit of a Minneapolis hospital.
Investigators from the St. Paul Police Department and FBI last week canvassed the shopping center parking lot where Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wrested him from a vehicle, threw him to the ground and repeatedly struck him in the head with a steel baton.
ICE has blamed Castañeda Mondragón for his own injuries, saying he attempted to flee while handcuffed and ''fell and hit his head against a concrete wall.''
But hospital staff who treated the man told The Associated Press such a fall could not plausibly account for the man's brain hemorrhaging and fragmented memory. A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull — injuries a doctor told the AP were inconsistent with a fall.
Earlier this month, the AP published an interview with Castañeda Mondragón in which he said the arresting officers had been ''racist'' and '' started beating me right away when they arrested me.'' His lawyers have contended ICE racially profiled him.
In separate visits to the shopping center last week, local and federal investigators requested surveillance footage from at least two businesses, whose employees told the AP their cameras either did not capture the Jan. 8 arrest or the images had been overwritten because more than a month passed before law enforcement asked for the video.
Johnny Ratana, who owns Teepwo Market, an Asian grocery store that faces the parking lot where the arrest occurred, said St. Paul police twice sent investigators to the business in recent days. The second time, he said, a data technician sought to recover images automatically overwritten after 30 days.
Ratana said he also was visited by FBI agents interested in the same footage.
