Trump administration officials swiftly sought to portray 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, as an armed disruptor intent on doing harm to federal agents when he brought his own gun to a Minneapolis street where officers clashed with protesters over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Video shot by bystanders and reviewed by The Associated Press appears to contradict some of those statements.
In their own words, this is what
the Trump administration has said about Pretti and the circumstances around his death, and what is shown on videos of the shooting:
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander leading Trump’s crackdown, told reporters Saturday that federal officers fired defensive shots after an individual “approached” with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
Also Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said several times that Pretti “came with a weapon and dozens of rounds of ammunition and attacked” officers, who took action to “defend their lives.”
WHAT WE KNOW: While questions remained about the confrontation, use-of-force experts told The Associated Press that bystander video undermined federal authorities’ claim that Pretti approached with a firearm and that the officer opened fire defensively.
Pretti can be seen with only a phone in his hand. No footage has been made public that appears to show him brandishing a weapon in the moments before or during the confrontation.
Pretti is seen held down by officers for several seconds when someone is heard saying, “gun, gun.” An officer appears to pull a handgun from Pretti’s waist area and begins moving away.
Then the first shot is fired by a Border Patrol officer. There’s a slight pause, and then the same officer fires several more times into Pretti’s back. Multiple officers back off. Within seconds, Pretti is motionless on the street.
Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
Also Saturday, Bovino said that Pretti “violently resisted” when agents tried to disarm him.
Noem said Sunday on Fox News Channel that officers tried to get Pretti to disengage, but Pretti “became aggressive and resisted them throughout that process.”
WHAT WE KNOW: The videos show Pretti stepping in after an immigration officer shoves a woman. Pretti appears to be holding his phone, but there’s no sign he’s holding a weapon.
Pretti moves between the two and reaches his hands out toward the officer. The officer deploys pepper spray. Pretti is seen turning his face away and raising an empty hand. The officer grabs Pretti’s hand to bring it behind his back and deploys the pepper spray again, pushing him away.
Pretti is next to the other protester when the officer grabs hold of Pretti and they struggle. The officer is then joined by several others and they force Pretti to the ground. An officer holding a canister strikes him several times.
The shooting Saturday occurred when officers were on a commercial street pursuing a man in the country illegally and wanted for domestic assault, Bovino said.
He said that Pretti was there “to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” In a Department of Homeland Security statement, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin used the same words.
Noem emphasized Saturday that Pretti “wasn’t there to peacefully protest. He was there to perpetuate violence.” She said Sunday that Pretti “impeded a law enforcement operation, which is against federal law.”
WHAT WE KNOW: Pretti was one of many protesters on the street Saturday morning. In a seven-minute video obtained by The Associated Press that shows the moments leading up to Pretti’s killing, he and others are holding up phones, apparently recording officer activity. Protesters are yelling out at the officers. Pretti is not visible the whole time, but he at one point can be seen talking to an officer, who pushes him back to the sidewalk. It’s not clear what Pretti is saying.
On Sunday, the Republican president in two lengthy social media posts said that Democrats had encouraged people to obstruct law enforcement operations, and called on officials in Minnesota to work with immigration officers and “turn over” people who were in the U.S. illegally.
“Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.
Trump also said in a post Saturday that there had been a coordinated “cover up” to distract from billions being stolen from the state in a series of fraud cases involving government programs in which most of the defendants have roots in the east African country of Somalia. Trump accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of “inciting Insurrection.”
Trump officials say Walz and Frey both repeatedly use inflammatory language, including Walz last year referring to federal immigration officers as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.”
WHAT WE KNOW: Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul are all subjects of a September lawsuit by the Trump administration over their so-called sanctuary policies that the agency says interfere with the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration policies.
Minneapolis and St. Paul restrict the extent to which their law officers and other employees can cooperate with immigration enforcement, the lawsuit noted.
Walz last year rejected the assertion that Minnesota is a sanctuary state, with no statewide law protecting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation. He has sharply criticized the administration’s operation in Minnesota as a “campaign of organized brutality,” which he repeated Saturday. Walz also has encouraged people to protest “loudly, urgent, but also peacefully,” he said in remarks after Renee Good’s killing by an immigration officer.
After Good’s killing, Frey used profanity in telling ICE to get out of Minneapolis.
“We do not want you here,” he said.
After the deadly shooting Saturday, both Walz and Frey pointed to the thousands of Minnesotans who peacefully protested the day prior.
“We want calm and peace and normalcy back to our lives. They want chaos,” Walz said. “We cannot and we will not give them what they want by meeting violence with violence.”
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
