OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) — NFL veteran Calais Campbell knew he wanted to keep playing, even after a family tragedy this summer resulting in his mother’s death and his brother being charged with murder.
“I love the game of football a lot … it brings me joy,” the 39-year-old Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman said Tuesday in his first public remarks since his mother's death. “It was a little harder training, but as far as football goes, I love this game a lot. And this is a very fun place for me to be. So playing football has been great for me.”
The Ravens signed the six-time Pro Bowler in April to a one-year deal for his 19th NFL season.
In late June, police found his 71-year-old mother dead at her home in Atlanta during a welfare check. Her 41-year-old son Ciarre Campbell was charged with murder after he was found with a knife, according to arrest warrants. The family told police that Ciarre struggles with mental illness.
The Ravens permitted Calais Campbell to miss the first few full-team practices of training camp. He participated in his first team session on Aug. 3, five days after the Ravens opened full-team camp.
“These last couple months have been pretty tough for me and my family, but we’re working through it,” Campbell said. “And I really appreciate all the love and support and the prayers that have been coming from all over, really, from all the NFL community. … Continue praying for us because we need it.”
Campbell, who will turn 40 on Sept. 1, previously played in Baltimore from 2020-2022, making his sixth and final Pro Bowl during his first season with the Ravens.
He returns to an organization with a different look, including first-year head coach Jesse Minter and a mostly new coaching staff.
“(He) brings great versatility along the D-line, is an unbelievable leader and mentor in that room and in the defensive room and with the team,” Minter said of Campbell, who has 117 career sacks in 278 NFL games, including 259 starts. “The timing of it obviously was really tough for him and his family. We allowed the first week or two of camp for him to really kind of work himself to get ready, as it affected his summer preparation, obviously. … I’m really happy that we have him.”
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Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell (93) watches during the team's NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, at the Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, left, works out during the team's NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, at the Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell (93) watches during the team's NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, at the Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills, Md. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota's attorney general sued the governor of Texas on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent charged with wounding a man and then lying to justify the shooting during the agency's crackdown in Minneapolis.
Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.
Minnesota officials have clashed with the federal government over who has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct. Ellison is a Democrat and Abbott is a Republican ally of President Donald Trump.
Castro was arrested in Texas in May on Minnesota charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg with a bullet that lodged in a child’s bedroom wall. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
Ellison told a news conference that unless he's extradited, Castro could be released from jail next week -- 90 days since he was detained -- under Texas law. And if he's freed, Castro could slip into Mexico from the border town where he's being held, Ellison said. The lawsuit said Castro has been making calls from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.”
“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”
It was not immediately known if Castro had a lawyer who could speak for him. Online court records in Minnesota and county jail records in Texas did not list a defense attorney.
Abbott's office said in a statement that it would not comment on “pending extradition matters.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the legal action to compel Castro’s extradition “should be a completely unnecessary lawsuit.” She said jail officials and prosecutors in Texas have been “very cooperative,” and that an extradition “is not supposed to be controversial.”
The office of Cameron County Sheriff Manny Trevino declined to comment Tuesday on the case.
Authorities say Sosa-Celis was shot after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., according to Minnesota officials.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether agents lied about what happened.
Regardless, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has called Moriarty's prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.
The federal government took a similar stance following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the Minneapolis enforcement surge. Moriarty sued the Trump administration to gain access to evidence in those cases before federal prosecutors turned it over last month.
The extradition lawsuit Ellison filed in U.S. District Court in Texas cites a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that compliance with the Constitution’s extradition clause is mandatory, affording no discretion to the governor or courts of a state where a defendant is being held.
Moriarty said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota.
“Gov. Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalist Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, right, speaks during a news conference as Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty looks on, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
FILE - Tear gas surrounds federal law enforcement officers as they leave a scene after a shooting on Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
