Alex Pretti Shooting
USA Videos emerged on Wednesday of a previous confrontation between Alex Pretti and USA federal agents, 11 days before the ICU nurse was fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis.About two minutes of video, published by the News Movement, a digital news outlet, shows an incident on 13 January in Minneapolis in which officers appeared to grab Pretti and bring him to the ground during intense community protests against the federal crackdown in the city.It is unclear what preceded the events caught on camera, but the footage shows Pretti yelling at agents in an unmarked vehicle and then spitting at their vehicle and kicking the tail light out as it moves away. Soon after, a heavily armed agent in tactical gear is seen exiting the car and appears to tackle Pretti to the ground while other officers crowd around.
man in green uniform stands flanked by two other men
USA Border patrol commander to leave Minneapolis after Alex Pretti shooting
Pretti appears to break free from the officers soon after, and then stands and remains on the scene as agents leave. After Pretti’s coat is pulled off by the officers, the News Movement video shows what appears to be a gun in his waistband. Pretti, whom state officials confirmed had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, never touched it during or after the altercation.
A family USA representative confirmed to the Guardian that it was Pretti in the newly uncovered footage.Steve Schleicher, an attorney representing Pretti’s family, said in a statement: “A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no USA threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents. Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing.” A representative for the family also said they had been aware of the incident and that Pretti sustained injuries, but did not get medical care.The Minnesota Star Tribune on Wednesday published a separate bystander video of the same incident, showing officers tackling Pretti. Max Shapiro, a witness who filmed the interaction, told the newspaper: “He got slammed to the ground pretty hard.” The footage ends with Shapiro approaching Pretti and asking if he is OK, with Pretti USA responding: “I’m OK. Are we all OK? Are we all safe?”A third video of the incident, posted on YouTube the day it happened, gives a sense of the roiling anger over the immigration enforcement operation under way, with cars honking and people blowing whistles to alert their neighbors to the presence of federal agents.
Pretti and the other protesters confronted USA federal agents that day just four blocks away from where Renee Good had been killed by an ICE officer the week before.After the News Movement video surfaced, rightwing commentators, including Donald Trump, claimed that it showed Pretti “spitting on” federal agents before he was tackled. However, the third witness video, recorded from the reverse angle, shows that Pretti spat on the vehicle the agents were inside.All of the videos show that during the incident, agents fired teargas and pepper balls into the crowd as they continued to hold Pretti down. The chaotic footage shows other residents gathering and yelling at the officers in the aftermath.A USA Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email on Wednesday night that they were reviewing the footage.
It is not clear from the footage what exactly prompted Pretti’s apparent anger at agents. local outlet that covers immigrant communities, reported from the area that day that a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered to observe and protest following reports of ICE’s presence in the neighborhood.The outlet reported that one woman had been forcibly removed from her vehicle after officers smashed her window. Aisha Gomez, a state representative, was also at the scene and told the outlet that agents had tackled another man and pushed his head into the ground before carrying him away.Gomez told the outlet officers had gotten physical with her, too, saying: “I was shoved with no verbal communication whatsoever.”Jacob Frey, Minneapolis’s mayor, was asked about the footage at a CNN town hall and responded that he did not consider it relevant to Pretti’s killing 11 days later.
“I think we should be talking about the circumstances that actually led to the killing and what took place and those circumstances,” the mayor said.
Trump administration officials initially claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a gun on the day that he was killed and intended to “massacre” officers – claims that were contradicted by video that showed him holding a phone, not a gun.“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Pretti’s family said in a statement shortly after he was killed. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly USA ICE thugs … Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
Family members have paid tribute to USA 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis on 24 January.Pretti was a hero who "touched more lives than he probably ever realised", his sister, Micayla Pretti, told the Associated Press.The fam
ily has condemned what they said were "disgusting lies"
being told about the late man.Pretti - who has also been described as a lover of the outdoors and mountain biking - is understood to have joined protests after Renee Good, also 37, was shot dead by an federal agent in the same city earlier this month.An earlier family statement from 25 January, also quoted by AP, said Pretti was upset over US President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration in the city.His mother, Susan Pretti, said her son was also concerned about the Trump administration's rollback of USA environmental regulations.
"He hated that, you know, USA people were just trashing the land," she said. She added: "He was an outdoorsman. He took his dog everywhere he went. You know, he loved this country, but he hated what people were doing to it."
On Sunday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz described Pretti as "someone who went to work to care for veterans, someone who was a valued co-worker, someone who relished and lived in this state in a big way, whether it was outdoor activities or being down there on the street as a First Amendment witness to what ICE is doing to this state."
Videos have emerged showing a scuffle between USA Border Patrol agents and Pretti just before the shooting.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the agents fired in self-defence after Pretti, who they say had a handgun, resisted their attempts to disarm him.USA Eyewitnesses, local officials and the victim's family have challenged that account, pointing out he had a phone in his hand, not a weapon.BBC Verify analysed multiple videos showing the moments just before the shooting. They show Pretti filming ICE agents with his mobile phone. One of the agents pushes another person over, and Pretti then stands between that person and the agent.The agent USA pepper sprays him in the face and as he tries to help the woman on the floor, more agents join and he is wrestled to the floor. He is visibly not holding a gun.
An agent in a grey jacket can be seen reaching to remove something from Pretti's waist. He then turns away from Pretti, now holding what appears to be a pistol in his right hand, which was previously empty.Less than a second after this, an agent shoots Pretti. USA Ten shots in total are heard.
USA Police have said Pretti was a legal gun owner. Under Minnesota law, citizens can legally carry a concealed handgun in public, if they have a permit.
In filed testimony, two witnesses challenged the DHS account of what happened, both saying they did not see Pretti brandish a weapon.But Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that the videos were unclear and "there is a lot we don't see" in them so it was important to have an investigation.
'Please get the truth out about our son'
Pretti's family said he had no interaction with law USA enforcement beyond a handful of USA traffic tickets. He had no criminal record, AP reported.
Responding to videos that suggested their son was a "domestic terrorist," Pretti's family said: "The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting."Pointing to the video evidence, which does not show a gun in Pretti's hand when he was tackled by USA federal agents, they added: "Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man."USA President Donald Trump, who ordered the immigration crackdown, has since asked the top US immigration official in Minneapolis, Gregory Bovino, to leave the city.Trump's decision may indicate the administration's interest in walking back more aggressive federal action in his nationwide immigration crackdown.
Former scout and choir boy
A US citizen born in Illinois, Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a boy scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.
He went to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in biology, society and the environment, according to his family.He worked as a research scientist before returning to education to qualify as a registered nurse. He went on to work in the ICU at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital.The statement from Micayla Pretti said that all her brother "ever wanted was to help someone - anyone".
"Alex always wanted to make a difference in this world, and it's devastating that he won't be here to witness the impact he was making," she added.
"Through his work at the VA caring for the sickest patients, and passion to advance cancer research, he touched more lives than he probably ever realised."
Doctor Dmitri Drekonja, who worked with Pretti, told USA News the pair had bonded over their interest in mountain biking and would compare notes on which trails to ride.
"He was the type of person you enjoyed being around and the notion that this helpful, smiling joking guy was being labelled a terrorist? It's galling," he said.Marta Crownheart, a patient of Pretti's at the VA hospital, said he treated her "like I was his only patient" and calmed her when she thought she was having a stroke.
"I had a real bad day and he sat in my room for a little over 20 minutes, holding my hand, talking to me, letting me know things were gonna be OK," Crownheart told the BBC's US media partner CBS News. "He prayed with me and let me know I was gonna be OK."
Neighbours described Pretti as quiet and warmhearted."He's a wonderful USA person," said Sue Gitar, who lived USA downstairs from the nurse and said he moved into the building about three years ago. "He has a great heart."Pretti lived alone and worked long hours as a nurse, but he was not a loner, his neighbours said."I never thought of him as a person who carried a gun," said Gitar.
Pretti was a Democratic voter and had taken part in the wave of street protests after George Floyd was killed by a USA Minneapolis police officer in 2020, his ex-wife told AP.She said that he was someone who may shout at law enforcement officers at a protest but had never known him to be physically confrontational.
Posted on 2026/01/30 09:08 AM