A 37-year-old man was shot and killed in Minneapolis by a Border Patrol agent Saturday morning, less than three weeks after Renee Good was fatally shot in the city by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent.
Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs, was killed Saturday around 9 a.m. local time in south Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security claimed the agent acted in self-defense while trying to disarm Pretti, but local officials pushed back on the account and condemned the ongoing federal immigration surge in their city. Bystander video showed Pretti holding a cellphone, not a gun, ahead of the shooting.
Here’s what we know about the shooting:
Conflicting narratives emerge of what led up to the shooting
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti “approached” U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun while they were conducting “targeted” immigration enforcement operations. Noem said officers attempted to disarm him, but he “reacted violently,” and “fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.”
Bystander videos reviewed and verified by CBS News shows Pretti was holding a phone in his right hand and nothing in his left before the shooting. Footage shows an altercation between several officers and a person on the ground before shots are heard.
Multiple videos show a federal agent in a gray jacket reaching into the scuffle empty-handed and emerging with a gun in his right hand, then turning away from the man when the first shot is fired. That agent is then seen running across the street as numerous shots are fired.
Noem said Pretti was carrying two magazines that each held dozens of rounds, and had no identification on him. When asked by CBS News whether Pretti “brandished” a firearm, Noem didn’t address that, but alleged that he “showed up to impede a law enforcement operation and assaulted our officers.” She said: “I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.”
Local officials said Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry, and that his only previous interaction with law enforcement was for traffic violations. Under Minnesota law, it’s legal to carry a handgun in public if you have a valid permit.
Witnesses who said they were at the scene of the shooting contradicted the accounts by federal officials in sworn declarations submitted in federal court, court documents show. One witness, a Minneapolis resident, said Pretti was directing traffic before the altercation with agents began.
“The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera,” the witness said. He also said “agents pulled the man on the ground.” The witness added: “I didn’t see him touch any of them.”
What we know about Alex Pretti
Born in Illinois, Pretti was a U.S. citizen and worked as an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital.
In a statement provided to CBS Minnesota, his family described him as a “kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.”
His family told the AP that he had participated in protests following the Good’s killing on Jan. 7.
A neighbor described him to CBS Minnesota as someone who “would always be willing to help others.”
Local leaders react with anger, frustration
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for an end to the federal operation in Minnesota. He said: “I just saw a video of more than six masked agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death. How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he had reviewed several videos of the shooting, and he called the Trump administration’s account of events “nonsense” and “lies.”
“What I see with my eyes and what you’re going to see with your eyes makes that pretty hard to believe,” he said.
In a news conference Sunday, Walz said President Trump needs to pull federal agents out of the state “before they kill another person.”
“I don’t care if you are conservative and you are flying a Donald Trump flag, you’re a libertarian, don’t tread on me, you’re a Democratic Socialist of America,” Walz said. “This is an inflection point, America.”
“This is not ‘we need to see both sides.’ This is not ‘we need to wait for this.’ This is basic human decency. And at this point in time, I’m just asking try, for a moment, to set aside the political side of it and go back and ground in the humanity of this.”
Lawyers for the city filed a declaration based on witness accounts of Saturday’s shooting that seeks to encourage a judge to put a temporary restraining order on the surge of federal troops in Minneapolis.
Federal probe underway, but unclear if state agencies will be involved
U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order barring the Department of Homeland Security from altering or destroying evidence related to the shooting. The order, which was requested by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, was set to remain effective through Monday afternoon, at which point Tostrud could issue a ruling to potentially extend it.
The judge’s order came in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the BCA, alleging that DHS mishandled evidence at the scene of the shooting and blocked them from accessing it, even through the bureau had obtained a judge’s signed search warrant. In the lawsuit, the BCA wrote that “contrary to long-standing procedures and accepted norms of state and federal cooperation, it appears federal authorities have taken exclusive possession of evidence from the scene.”
Earlier this month, the BCA said it had withdrawn from the Good case because federal authorities had restricted its access to evidence.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that a “federal investigation is ongoing.” Like other Trump administration officials, he blamed Democratic leaders for “this avoidable tragedy,” claiming they “have resisted federal law enforcement and created this escalation.”
“Federal officers are tasked with the difficult jobs of removing criminal illegal aliens from American communities,” he said, adding that the Justice Department “will continue to hold those breaking federal law accountable, including those who harass and violently attack law enforcement in the name of protest.”
Walz posted to social media that he “told the White House the state must lead the investigation. Let state investigators secure justice.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said that police have not been provided with “any public safety statement around the incident, what happened,” by federal agents.
Protesters demonstrate at scene of shooting
A group of protesters descended on the scene following the shooting, Noem said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin referred to protesters as “rioters.” Local law enforcement declared an unlawful assembly.
Noem said protesters threw objects, “and a rampant assault began, and even an HSI officer agent’s finger was bitten off.” Attorney General Pam Bondi later said a person had been arrested in the biting incident.
Video footage from CBS Minnesota showed standoffs between protesters and federal officers. Airborne chemical irritants were discharged by officers, and whistling and shouting were audible on the video. Protesters were also seen setting up barricades of trash cans.
Despite earlier chaos, O’Hara said at a late afternoon news conference that demonstrations throughout the city were currently peaceful and that his officers “intend to keep it that way.”
