Opening summary: Alex Pretti’s parents condemn ‘sickening lies’ of Trump administration
Welcome to our live coverage of the outcry across the US following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old American citizen Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, the second such killing there in less than three weeks.
Pretti’s family released a statement on Saturday evening in which they said they were “heartbroken but also very angry” after Donald Trump and his officials referred to Pretti as a “gunman” who had approached US border patrol officers.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the family statement said. “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
Two witnesses to the killing have said in sworn testimony that the intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.
One witness, who filmed the shooting from right behind Pretti, said federal agents tackled him after he came to help someone whom they had pushed to the ground.
Footage from the scene supports the assertion that Pretti is holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot.
In the aftermath of the killing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”. Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander, said: “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Here are some of the latest developments:
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Minnesota federal judge Eric Tostrud ordered federal agencies to preserve evidence related to Pretti’s death. Tostrud’s ruling marked a response to Minnesota officials’ lawsuit on Saturday alleging that federal officials were stymying investigative efforts.
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Thousands of protesters gathered in cities including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. They braved extreme cold to shout slogans including: “Say it once, say it twice, we will not put up with ICE!”
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The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it included money for the DHS, the department responsible for ICE. “What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling – and unacceptable in any American city,” the New York senator said. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”
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US vice-president JD Vance said on X, without providing evidence for his claims, that “this level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
Key events
Bovino continues to defend fatal shooting of Alex Pretti without evidence
Senior US border patrol official Greg Bovino, who has spearheaded Trump’s aggressive immigration operations across the country, was asked on CNN about whether Alex Pretti was at any point “brandishing” a weapon – as the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed – or was unarmed when he was killed by federal agents yesterday.
Video footage of the incident directly contradicts the Trump administration’s claims, and show that Pretti was holding a phone, not a weapon, when he was tackled to the ground by federal agents. At no point is Pretti seen wielding a weapon. Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara has also said that Pretti was believed to be a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.
At first Bovino said only that Pretti “had brought a weapon … to a riot” and that the investigation was under way. He then proceeded to cast blame on the victim, saying, without any evidence, that what Pretti did was to “perpetrate violence, obstruct, delay or obfuscate border patrol in the performance of their duties in an active crime scene”.
He injected himself into that crime scene. I can’t say that enough, he made the decision to go there. We didn’t make the decision to talk to him.
Asked about video footage that appears to show officers disarming Pretti when he was shot, Bovino said:
We’re not going to adjudicate that here on TV in one freeze-frame there. We heard the law enforcement officer say, ‘Gun, gun, gun.’ So at some point they knew there was a gun.
He brought a semiautomatic weapon to a riot, assaulted federal officers … So I do believe the [homeland secuity] secretary [Kristi Noem] is 100% spot on in what she said.
Bovino declined to say whether the gun was fired or how many federal agents fired their weapons.
He maintained that “the victims are the border patrol agents there” and that they “are going to more than likely be on administrative duty” as investigations continue.
‘Your eyes don’t lie’: Amy Klobuchar says she will vote against DHS funding as government heads towards a potential partial shutdown
We mentioned in an earlier post the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it includes money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, increasing the possibility that the government could partially shut down on 30 January when funding runs out.
The Democratic Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, who filed paperwork last week to create a campaign committee to run for governor in the state, said she would not vote for DHS funding after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.
In an interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press programme, she said: “When they’re killing two constituents in my state, and they’re taking 2-year-olds out of the arms of their mom, and they are taking an elder Hmong man out of his house and putting him out there in his underwear, and then figuring out they have the wrong man, no, I am not voting for this funding.” In a separate part of the interview, Klobuchar said:
When you see the video … what you see is someone brandishing a cellphone who is simply there with a cellphone helping someone up, a woman up, as his parents point out, when she had slipped.
And so when I hear the officials from the Trump administration describe this video in ways that simply aren’t true I just keep thinking ‘your eyes don’t lie.’
Klobuchar urged Republicans in the Senate to join Democrats and “stand up” to vote against the DHS funding as she said ICE and Border Control agents are violating the first, second and fourth amendments.
The American Nurses Association, which represents over five million registered nurses, said in a statement that it was “deeply disturbed and saddened” by the killing of Alex Pretti, a US citizen and nurse, by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis. The statement, posted to social media, read:
The American Nurses Association (ANA) is deeply disturbed and saddened to learn of the death of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse, in Minneapolis earlier today. We extend our condolences to Alex’s loved ones, colleagues, and the community at large.
ANA condemns violence in our communities. The seriousness of this incident and others demand transparency and accountability. ANA calls for a full, unencumbered investigation, and urges that findings be shared promptly and clearly so Alex’s loved ones and the public have answers.
One in four nurses already experience workplace violence. As incidents with federal law enforcement continue to rise across the country, we are deeply concerned for the safety of nurses, both on the job and in the communities they serve.
Nurses are advocates for the safety and well-being of their communities. They enter this profession to heal, to protect human life, and to show up for people in their most vulnerable moments. ANA remains committed to preventing violence in the workplace and in our communities, and to advancing meaningful protections that safeguard healthcare workers and the public.
The Associated Press reported last week that the Pentagon had ordered about 1,500 active duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota.
It came after Donald Trump said in a social media post that he would invoke the Insurrection Act “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”
The president, who has repeatedly threatened to use the 1807 law, appeared to walk back the threat the following day, telling reporters there wasn’t a reason to use it “right now”. “If I needed it, I’d use it,” Trump said. “It’s very powerful.”
The Insurrection Act is a US federal law that gives the president the power to deploy the military or federalize national guard troops inside the US to quell domestic uprisings.
Generally, federal military forces are not allowed to carry out civilian law enforcement duties against US citizens except in times of emergency.
The law enables troops to take part in domestic law enforcement activities such as making arrests and performing searches, functions they are generally otherwise prohibited from engaging in.
GoFundMe page for Pretti nears $400,000
A GoFundMe page entitled Alex Pretti is an American Hero has raised almost $400,000 since it was set up just 17 hours ago.
Its organiser, Keith Edwards, said that Pretti was ‘“executed on the streets of Minneapolis by ICE agents”.
On the page, he says:
This fundraiser is intended to support the loved ones he leaves behind … If, for any reason, the funds cannot be transferred to Alex’s family, we will direct the total amount to the Immigrant Defense Project, a nonprofit that provides litigation, advocacy, and community-defense resources to help immigrants defend their rights and fight deportation.
A number of prominent US sports stars have condemned Alex Pretti’s killing by federal agents.
On Saturday, two-time NBA All-star Tyrese Haliburton posted: “Alex Pretti was murdered.” Another basketball star, Angel Reese, posted “Praying for our country” on X.
NFL stars also reacted to the shooting. Former Steelers player and broadcaster Ryan Clark paid tribute to Pretti on X. “Rest Easy Alex Pretti. Bro was a hero. Prayers to his family & loved ones. Senseless death… AGAIN!!” Clark wrote.
Dwight McGlothern Jr, a cornerback for Minneapolis’s NFL team, the Minnesota Vikings, has regularly posted on the recent unrest and did so again on Saturday. “It’s not right what’s happening in Minnesota,” he wrote.
Saturday’s NBA game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors was postponed after Pretti’s killing. The Timberwolves play less than two miles from the scene of the shooting and the NBA said it made the decision to “prioritize the safety and security of the Minneapolis community”.
You can read our full report here
Here is a video showing the moment ICE agents shoot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. A warning – it is quite distressing to watch:
David Smith
David Smith, a former foreign correspondent, has written about the areas targeted in the US immigration crackdown causing terror in communities across the country:
In the first year of his second presidency, Trump’s ICE deployments have been carefully aimed at cities that are Democratic-led and often Black-led, as if imposing collective punishment for their defiance. In this, he is borrowing from an authoritarian playbook reminiscent of Saddam Hussein of Iraq targeting the Kurds or Soviet leader Joseph Stalin causing the Holodomor, or “death by hunger”, in Ukraine.
It is the same vengeful petulance that in the past week alone has seen Trump lash out at Canada and other Nato allies over perceived slights in Davos during his quest to conquer Greenland.
Trump seems to reserve a special loathing for Minnesota because he lost the presidential elections there in 2016, 2020 and 2024, despite most neighbouring states voting in his favour. He recently made the false claim that he won Minnesota all three times. In reality, no Republican – not even Ronald Reagan – has prevailed there since Richard Nixon in 1972.
Minnesota is home to the biggest Somali community in the country, making it a target of Trump’s animus: this week, he described Somalis as “low-IQ people”, not even trying to conceal his racism. It is also home to Somali-born Ilhan Omar, a progressive congresswoman who gets under Trump’s skin. The state’s governor, Tim Walz, is a trenchant critic of the president who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 election that she lost to Trump.
In addition, toward the end of his first presidency, Minneapolis was the scene of the police murder of Floyd, a Black man. Floyd’s killing sparked Black Lives Matter protests that surged all the way to the doorstep of the White House. America felt febrile and fragile in those days. This is another of those moments.
You can read the rest of David Smith’s analysis piece here:
Minnesota workers pressure employers to take action against ICE operations
Michael Sainato
Here is an extract from a story by my colleague Michael Sainato who has looked into how some of the US’s biggest companies are facing intensifying pressure to speak out about ICE’s operations in Minnesota:
On Friday, labor unions, community leaders, and faith leaders organized a Day of Truth & Freedom, calling for an economic blackout of no work, no shopping and no school.
Organizers of the Day of Truth & Freedom have been targeting large corporations in demanding they take stands against ICE, including ceasing economic activity with the agency, and banning the agency from entering work sites.
Target, Home Depot, Enterprise, Delta Airlines and Hilton were targeted with actions leading up to the 23 January economic blackout. Hundreds of Target workers signed onto a letter addressed to the company’s CEO and other leaders criticizing the company’s silence on the ICE operations in Minnesota. None of the companies responded to multiple requests for comment.
“It’s so sad to see Target so silent,” said Sheletta Brundidge, an activist and organizer in Minneapolis who started a Target boycott with activist Nekima Levy Armstrong against the company rescinding their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Levy Armstrong was recently detained by the FBI for an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church. Brundidge previously worked with Target.
“That Target CEO should be out at the street talking to people. He should be part of the protesting. He should make sure that the neighbors to his company’s headquarters are taken care of. Has he gone out to the site where Renee Good was killed and dropped off water or hand warmers? Have they done anything for her children? Has he stepped out of that ivory tower to look around and see what is going on?” added Brundidge.
Colleagues pay tribute to Alex Pretti, described as ‘the gentlest soul you ever met’
Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs Hospital ICU nurse, was said to be deeply upset about the Trump administration’s sometimes brutal immigration crackdown. The 37-year-old has been described as kindhearted by his friends and family (see opening post to read what his parents said about him in a statement issued after he was killed).
Dimitri Drekonja, chief of the Infectious Diseases Section at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital and a colleague of Pretti, called him “a good kind person who lived to help.” Pretti was a nurse working “to support critically ill veterans,” he added.
Joshua Green, another colleague, said Pretti was passionate about human rights and was not easily provoked. “He was a very calm, collected person and always had a good demeanor,” Green said. “He always had a smile. This is quite the shock.”
Aasma Shaukat said she hired Pretti at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System about a decade ago, according to the Washington Post. “Alex was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul you ever met,” Shaukat said.
“He was very bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. He wanted to get into the health care field, work with patients and be a nurse,” she recalled. “He did wonderful. Did his work really well, was a team player.”
Senate Democrats will not vote for spending package that includes money for the DHS, Schumer says
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Senate Democrats will not vote for a spending package that includes money for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, increasing the possibility that the government could partially shut down on 30 January when funding runs out. Posting on X late last night, Schumer said:
What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling-and unacceptable in any American city. Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.
Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.
House Republicans overcame widespread Democratic opposition on Thursday to approve a bill funding the DHS, with a 220-207 vote cast after seven Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in voting for the measure. It is now being sent to the Senate for consideration.
Yesterday’s killing of Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers came weeks after Renee Good, also a 37-year-old American citizen, was killed on 7 January by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis, sparking outrage nationwide.
My colleague Richard Luscombe reports in this story:
The death of Good, who relatives said was acting as a legal observer of a surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Minneapolis, has raised tensions in the Minnesota city and sparked a fight between the Trump administration and local officials.
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly insisted that Good was a “domestic terrorist” who aimed her car at the ICE agent. The officer was forced to fire in self-defense, they claimed.
Multiple video clips of the encounter, however, show that Good was steering away from the agent as she tried to drive away, and at least two of the shots were fired from the side of the vehicle. State officials are angry that they have been cut out of an FBI inquiry, and that federal authorities are looking into Good’s widow and Democratic leaders in Minnesota, including the governor, Tim Walz, and the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, and not the officer who killed Good, Jonathan Ross.
Amy Fischer, the director for refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International US, has condemned the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, saying in a statement issued yesterday that it was “not an isolated incident”.
Fischer said:
Today’s fatal shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agents on the streets of Minneapolis is the latest devastating reminder that ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are not making our communities safer. Instead, they are operating with impunity, using deadly force in broad daylight, terrorizing neighborhoods, and tearing young children from their families.
This killing is not an isolated incident. It is part of a broader pattern in which ICE, with its paramilitary-style operations, has been unleashed to carry out violent and abusive enforcement and detention practices with little oversight or accountability. From deadly street operations to the torture, neglect and other abuses documented in immigrant detention facilities, ICE has repeatedly violated human rights while facing virtually no consequences. In fact, the House voted Thursday to increase its funding by billions of dollars.
How many more people must die before U.S. leaders act? At a moment when lives are being taken and communities are demanding answers, Congress must stop looking away. The U.S. Senate faces an urgent choice in the coming days: continue pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a lawless agency that endangers lives with impunity or take meaningful action to rein in ICE and stop funding its abuses.
Amnesty International calls on Congress to reject any additional funding for ICE and to immediately take steps to hold ICE accountable for the deaths and other human rights violations it has caused, and to end these deadly enforcement practices. Not one more life sould be lost. Not one more dime should be spent enabling this horror.”
California governor calls for homeland security secretary to resign
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has called for Kristi Noem to resign from her role as homeland security secretary and for senior US border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who has spearheaded aggressive immigration operations across the country, to be fired.
Noem has said Alex Pretti “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”, a claim that is undermined by video evidence and witness testimony. Bovino also told reporters that Pretti had approached border patrol agents with the same gun.
In a post on X, Newsom, a frontrunner among Democratic candidates for president in 2028, said:
Kristi Noem must RESIGN. Greg Bovino must be FIRED. Suspend the LAWLESS mass deportation raids nationwide NOW – ICE is no longer just deporting dangerous criminals. Send the border patrol back to the border. End the militarization of ICE + the sick racial profiling.
End the perverse cash incentives that are bounties to perpetrate Trump’s cruel agenda. Require thorough, real background checks for everyone, and 2+ years of training before even setting foot in the field. INVESTIGATE and PROSECUTE every single federal agent who is breaking the law.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called out Trump administration officials for justifying Alex Pretti’s death at the hands of federal agents because he was in legal possession of a firearm.
In criticising Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, Ocasio-Cortez alluded to the broad conservative support for Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, some six years ago during racial justice protests.
Ocasio-Cortez said:
How rich is it that she is saying showing up to the scene of a protest with a legally owned weapon should be grounds for a person’s death, execution at the hands of the state, by the same party and the same administration that praises Kyle Rittenhouse.
Earlier on Saturday, Noem had said:
I don’t know any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition, rather than a sign. This is a violent riot. We have someone showing up with weapons and are using them to assault law enforcement officers.
There is no evidence that Pretti had any intention of attacking law enforcement officers. Video of the incident also undermines that the shooting of Pretti was in self-defence.
Senior Republican senator calls for ‘a full joint federal and state investigation’
A senior Republic senator has said the credibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security are in the balance after what happened in Minneapolis and has called for a full inquiry.
Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy posted on X:
The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth.
Further to the last post, fellow actress Natalie Portman got emotional as she described her feelings over a “horrible day”.
“What is happening in our country is just obscene,” she said in Park City, where she was promoting the film The Gallerist.
What Trump and [homeland security secretary] Kristi Noem and ICE are doing to our citizens and to undocumented people is outrageous and needs to end.
Hollywood stars have used red carpet appearances at the Sundance film festival to denounce the killing of American citizen Alex Pretti after his fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.
Actor and director Olivia Wilde said on Saturday that the death of a second protester in just three weeks at the hands of federal agents was “unfathomable”, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
“I can’t believe that we’re watching people get murdered in the street,” she said.
These brave Americans who have stepped out to protest the injustice of these ICE quote/unquote ‘officers,’ and watching them be murdered – it’s unfathomable. We cannot normalise it.
Wilde – who wore an “ICE OUT” badge and was in Park City, Utah, for the premiere of the film The Invite – said the US government violence against people exercising their right to free expression was “un-American”.
We may have a government that is somehow trying to make excuses for it and legitimise it, but we [Americans] don’t.
Opening summary: Alex Pretti’s parents condemn ‘sickening lies’ of Trump administration
Welcome to our live coverage of the outcry across the US following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old American citizen Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, the second such killing there in less than three weeks.
Pretti’s family released a statement on Saturday evening in which they said they were “heartbroken but also very angry” after Donald Trump and his officials referred to Pretti as a “gunman” who had approached US border patrol officers.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the family statement said. “Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
Two witnesses to the killing have said in sworn testimony that the intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.
One witness, who filmed the shooting from right behind Pretti, said federal agents tackled him after he came to help someone whom they had pushed to the ground.
Footage from the scene supports the assertion that Pretti is holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot.
In the aftermath of the killing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”. Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander, said: “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Here are some of the latest developments:
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Minnesota federal judge Eric Tostrud ordered federal agencies to preserve evidence related to Pretti’s death. Tostrud’s ruling marked a response to Minnesota officials’ lawsuit on Saturday alleging that federal officials were stymying investigative efforts.
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Thousands of protesters gathered in cities including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. They braved extreme cold to shout slogans including: “Say it once, say it twice, we will not put up with ICE!”
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The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said his party would block a funding package next week if it included money for the DHS, the department responsible for ICE. “What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling – and unacceptable in any American city,” the New York senator said. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”
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US vice-president JD Vance said on X, without providing evidence for his claims, that “this level of engineered chaos is unique to Minneapolis. It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
