Protests erupted in Minnesota after 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti was fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis around 9 a.m. central time on the morning of Saturday, January 24. Pretti, a former ICU nurse who treated veterans, was an American citizen and Minneapolis resident with no criminal record.
The Department of Homeland Security has alleged that Pretti approached a group of DHS officers with the intention to “massacre” them. However, video evidence disputes that claim: Pretti was legally carrying a gun, but he did not appear to unholster it at any time during the encounter.
The video provided to the New York Times shows Pretti approaching and filming a group of ICE agents who are detaining another person. After an agent shoves a bystander with an orange backpack into a white SUV, Pretti puts himself between the agent and the bystander. The agent releases pepper spray, and Pretti appears to try and help the individual with the orange backpack.
The situation escalates when multiple agents approach Pretti, wrestle him to the ground, and hit him repeatedly with a pepper spray canister. Another agent walks over, pulls a gun from near Pretti’s hip, and moves away. At this point, Pretti is fully restrained and unarmed.
After the gun is removed, an agent pulls his gun and shoots Pretti in the back four consecutive times. A second agent joins in, and together they shoot at least ten times in under five seconds.
A new video shows a previous altercation between Pretti and ICE agents 11 days before his death. He was tackled to the ground after kicking the tail light of an immigration vehicle and shouting expletives at the agents. The video shows a gun at Pretti’s waistband, though he does not appear to brandish it, and it is unclear if the ICE agents noticed it.
Steve Schleicher, the lawyer representing Pretti’s parents, has stated that this altercation is by no means a justification for his shooting.
This is the second fatal ICE shooting in the past few weeks in Minneapolis. On January 7, Renee Good was shot as she attempted to drive away from a confrontation. In both instances, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the shots were defensive, while the larger Minnesota community called them shameless executions of US citizens on US streets.
Local officials stated that the Department of Homeland Security is restricting their investigations of both shootings, and demands have been made for an independent investigation.
This second shooting comes only a day after large scale protests and a “statewide pause in daily economic activity” erupted throughout Minnesota in opposition to the large-scale, often violent immigration operations in the state. They singled out the shooting of Good and the detainment of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was transported from a Minneapolis suburb to a Texas detainment facility along with his father.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has demanded that Trump pull the “3,000 untrained agents out of Minnesota before they kill another person.”
Though this echoes the demands of politicians and civilians alike, top officials refuse to cut back on ICE activity in Minneapolis.
