What evidence have prosecutors presented in court filings about the fingertip-biting incidents in Minneapolis?
Executive summary
Prosecutors in federal court rely primarily on two investigator affidavits from Homeland Security/ICE-HSI that describe agents being bitten during clashes in Minneapolis and attach graphic photos of an injured hand and a recovered fingertip found inside a glove [1] [2]. The filings name two women charged with assaulting and interfering with federal officers and recount agent observations and alleged contemporaneous details, but officials outside the court documents have not publicly produced corroborating evidence beyond the images and the complaints themselves [3] [4].
1. What the court filings say: allegations and charged defendants
Federal criminal complaints filed after the Minneapolis incidents allege that two separate bites occurred during protests and that investigators prepared two affidavits: one describing an HSI or Customs and Border Protection officer whose right ring fingertip was removed when an individual “forcibly bit” it, and a second recounting a similar bite incident involving another officer; the complaints resulted in charges against Claire Louise Feng and Emily Duchateau Baierl for assaulting and interfering with federal law enforcement [1] [2] [3].
2. Physical evidence prosecutors submitted in affidavits
Prosecutors attached graphic photographs to the filings showing a bloodied hand with a missing fingertip, and court documents state that the victim later located the fingertip inside his glove and received medical attention roughly 45 minutes after the incident, details the complaints use to link the injury to the events on the street [1] [5].
3. Agent and investigator descriptions quoted in filings
The affidavits, as summarized in reporting, quote investigators who describe the sequence — federal agents forming a secure perimeter after the shooting of Alex Pretti, physical scuffles as officers attempted to detain protesters, and at least one instance in which an officer reports being bitten on a gloved finger, language prosecutors use to frame the bites as forcible assaults [6] [2] [5].
4. Timing, location and nexus to enforcement operation included in complaints
The complaints situate both alleged bites on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis shortly after federal Border Patrol and HSI agents had been deployed to create a “secure perimeter” during enforcement-related unrest following a fatal shooting, tying the alleged assaults to a discrete set of interactions between federal personnel and protesters that day [2] [6].
5. What prosecutors have not (yet) publicly produced beyond the affidavits
Outside the sworn court filings and the graphic photos attached to them, officials have not publicly released further corroborating materials; media reporting and officials’ social posts note that it remains unclear which pictured individuals — when images of detained people were shared by DHS and others — are alleged to be the attackers, and outlets flagged that no additional evidence beyond the images and complaints has been provided to the public [4] [7] [8].
6. Political amplification and the risk of narrative shaping
Officials in DHS and the Attorney General’s office posted the images and strong statements on social media, and reporting documents how those posts were rapidly amplified across conservative outlets and by political figures — a dynamic that both raised public attention to the prosecutions and introduced an explicit institutional and political frame around the injuries that readers should weigh alongside the court filings themselves [9] [8] [7].
Bottom line: strength and limits of the prosecutors’ public case
The publicly available prosecutorial evidence as presented in court papers is concrete in form — sworn affidavits, graphic photos of an injured hand, and recovery of a fingertip from a glove — and identifies two defendants and the alleged facts tying the bites to federal officers; however, reporting makes clear that beyond those filings and the images officials have shared, the public record lacks additional disclosed corroboration and that photos circulated on social media do not by themselves identify which person did the biting [1] [5] [4]. Prosecutors’ next steps in court — additional discovery, witness testimony, forensic analysis and judicial review — will determine how the evidence presented in the affidavits holds up under cross-examination and stricter evidentiary scrutiny.