Minneapolis officials and residents demanded answers after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot Alex Pretti during a weekend protest, as videos verified by Reuters appeared to contradict the Trump administration’s self-defense account and a federal judge ordered evidence preserved.
Pretti, 37, became the second U.S. citizen this month to be killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis amid a sweeping surge of thousands of armed, masked agents deployed by President Donald Trump. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz renewed calls for the administration to withdraw the agents and has asked a federal judge to curb what the state alleges are unconstitutional excesses in the operation.
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The shooting, in subfreezing weather on snowy streets, intensified demonstrations that have repeatedly drawn thousands downtown. Residents continued to gather at a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles where Pretti was shot, and protesters returned to denounce the ICE surge, blowing whistles and carrying signs.
Videos of the incident verified by Reuters show Pretti holding a phone, not a gun, as he moves toward two women who had been shoved by an agent. The footage shows a federal officer push one woman and knock another to the ground. Pretti positions himself between the agent and the women and raises his left arm to shield himself as the agent pepper-sprays him.
Several agents then grab Pretti, force him onto his hands and knees and pin him. A voice in the crowd shouts what sounds like a warning about a gun. The footage appears to show an agent remove a handgun from Pretti’s waistband and step away with it. Moments later, another officer points a firearm at Pretti’s back and fires four times in quick succession; additional shots follow from a second agent. Darius Reeves, former head of ICE’s Baltimore field office, called the team’s response “troubling,” saying, “It’s clear no one is communicating to me, based on my observation of how that team responded.”
Minnesota officials said Pretti had a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm, which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized as a constitutional right in 2022. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said “the videos speak for themselves” and that he had seen no evidence Pretti brandished a gun. The city has been on edge since Jan. 7, when a federal immigration agent shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good after approaching her in a parked vehicle. Trump officials said Good tried to ram the agent; bystander video suggests she was steering away.
State and local authorities are investigating whether the agent who killed Good violated Minnesota law. The U.S. Justice Department has withdrawn its cooperation from that probe, prompting at least a dozen federal prosecutors to resign in protest over the department’s handling of the case.
At the state’s request, a federal judge on Saturday night issued a temporary order barring the Trump administration from destroying or altering any evidence related to Pretti’s killing.
Chief executives of Target, Cargill, Best Buy and other major Minnesota companies urged “immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.” In separate statements, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton condemned the deaths of Good and Pretti. “This has to stop,” Barack and Michelle Obama said, calling Pretti’s killing a “wake-up call” that core American values “are increasingly under assault.” Clinton accused the administration of lying and said peaceful protesters “have been arrested, beaten, teargassed and most searingly, in the cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed.”
Pretti worked as an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital. More than 200 health care workers gathered at the shooting site, leaving flowers and tributes. “He was caring and he was kind,” said one woman in medical scrubs who said she had worked with Pretti and asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. “None of this makes any sense.”
President Trump has defended the ICE operations as necessary to reduce crime and enforce immigration laws.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
