Alex Jeffrey Pretti murdered by ICE

On Sunday morning (Jan. 25) Jenifer Rubin of The Contrarian sums up Minneapolis' Friday and Saturday's activities thus:

The contrast between, on one hand, federal shock troops’ brutal, unjustified execution in Minneapolis on Saturday of Alex Pretti, a thirty-seven-year-old ICU nurse for the VA, and, on the other, Friday’s closures and a massive, peaceful demonstration and rally, where “Tens of thousands gather[ed] in downtown Minneapolis for ‘ICE Out’ day” (reportedly the largest union action in state history) — attended by union members, business people, clergy, and community activists in -20 degree weather — sums up the battle between tyranny and democracy.

The struggle between facts we all see and regime lies we all know to be preposterous plays out as well. As is their standard knee-jerk response, Donald Trump and his regime lied about the victim and the circumstances of the killing, despite the tragedy being captured on video from multiple angles.

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These are posts from FaceBook which I'm documenting, because the news is so skewed and I want to be sure to have accurate information archived. The photos are interspersed, but not published by those authors.

From Occupy Democrats: Jan 24, 1:30 pm

BREAKING: The man brutally murdered by ICE in Minneapolis today FOR NO REASON has been identified as 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and American CITIZEN Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

Alex was a registered nurse with NO CRIMINAL RECORD and only a few parking tickets to his name. He was an athlete and avid outdoorsman. He was a brother and a son. He worked for the VA, where he cared for veterans' health. He was an ICE observer who was legally filming the ICE agents’ actions when he was stopped, detained, DISARMED, and THEN shot several times by ICE agents.

Alex had a legal permit to carry a firearm and multiple videos of the killing clearly show that he did not draw his weapon or brandish it at ICE agents. Apparently, the Second Amendment only applies to Republicans.

He was ONLY filming when they approached him, and was ONLY holding his camera.

ICE agents had taken his weapon from its holster BEFORE they shot him.

He was being pinned down and brutally beaten by a mob of ICE agents when they shot him FOR NO REASON.

It was MURDER.

It's worth highlighting the fact that Pretti is a legal citizen and has an address listed in South Minneapolis. The Trump administration has flooded our streets with undertrained, overweight, bloodthirsty, masked enforcers under the pretext of rounding up violent undocumented migrants. In practice, they're targeting and executing innocent Americans.

It's absolutely paramount that we spread the truth about Pretti far and wide because Homeland Security is already rushing to falsely smear him as an attempted mass shooter. The official DHS account on X wrote that he "wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement." They're absolutely shameless with their lies. We won't fall for it.

Rest in power, Alex.

Please like and share to spread the word!

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AND:

The killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis looks less like law enforcement and more like an execution carried out in broad daylight on a city street. Multiple videos show the 37 year old nurse with his phone out, stepping toward a chaotic ICE arrest where agents had slammed a woman to the pavement and were pinning her as she screamed. What you see is not a threat advancing on officers, but a neighbor trying to document and de escalate a scene that already looked ugly.

In the footage, agents shove Pretti, pepper spray him and drag him to the sidewalk, where several officers pile on while he is on the ground. One appears to strike his head with a hard object as he is already restrained, and then, with his body pinned and the danger clearly moving in only one direction, agents fire a rapid volley of about ten shots. Officials immediately leaned on the familiar script that he was armed and that the shots were “defensive,” even as the videos show his phone in his hand and his movements focused on the battered woman beside him.

Pretti did, in fact, legally own a handgun, and Minnesota law allows open carry with a permit, which Minneapolis police have already confirmed he had. By every public account so far, the gun stayed holstered and never appears in his hands before or during the shooting. What the evidence does show is a licensed nurse with minor traffic tickets on his record stepping in to shield a stranger from an immigration dragnet that has already left multiple people dead in the same city this month, and paying for it with his life.

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And from Heather Cox Richardson:

January 24, 2026 (Saturday)

This morning, on a street in Minneapolis, at least seven federal agents tackled and then shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the local VA hospital.

Video from the scene shows Pretti directing traffic on a street out of an area with agents around, then trying to help another person get up after she had been pushed to the ground by the agents. The agents then surround Pretti and shoot pepper spray into his face, then pull him to the ground from behind and hit him as he appears to be trying to keep his head off the ground. An agent appears to take a gun out of Pretti’s waistband during the struggle, then turns and leaves with it. A shot then stops Pretti’s movements, appearing to kill him, before nine more shots ring out, apparently as agents continued to fire into his body.

It looked like an execution.

After he was dead, the agents walked away, apparently making no effort to preserve the crime scene, which people on the street later tried to secure by walling it off with trash bins.

As journalist Philip Bump noted, administration officials didn’t even pretend to wait for more information before jumping straight to “the opponent of the state deserved it.”

Mitch Smith of the New York Times reported that federal agents have blocked state investigators from the scene. Drew Evans of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a statewide investigations team that specializes in police shootings, told reporters his agency had obtained a search warrant—a rare step—but the federal government still refused them access.

Tonight, in a lawsuit against Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to prevent DHS agents from destroying evidence related to the shooting. The suit noted the “astonishing” departure from normal investigations, seemingly trying not to preserve evidence but to destroy it. A judge, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, immediately granted the restraining order, barring the administration from "destroying or altering evidence" concerning the killing.

Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times reported that federal officials also “have refused to disclose the identities of federal agents involved in Saturday’s shooting, as well as the names of federal agents who have shot people in recent days.”

Minnesota police have refused to obey the federal officers, though. Local law enforcement has been talking to witnesses and finding videos of the shooting. Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference: "Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city to do so with the same discipline, humanity, and integrity that effective law enforcement in this country demands. We urge everyone to remain peaceful."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that it, rather than the FBI, will investigate the shooting. But, as Alex Witt of MS NOW noted, DHS had already issued a statement about the shooting, which falsely asserted that Pretti had “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and that he “violently resisted” as “officers attempted to disarm” him. The statement continued that “an agent fired defensive shots” and added that Pretti “also had 2 magazines and no ID—this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement."

“So,” Witt noted, “they're gonna be investigating that which they’ve already issued a summary about…. It would seem that it’s a closed book?”

After repeatedly being exposed as liars over previous accusations against those they have shot, the Department of Homeland Security has so little credibility that Witt is not the only journalist calling out the federal agents for lying. Devon Lum of the New York Times wrote: “Videos on social media that were verified by The New York Times contradict the Department of Homeland Security's account of the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.

“The Department of Homeland Security said the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and they tried to disarm him. But footage from the scene shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him.”

But lying to the American people is the only option for the administration when we can, once again, all see what happened with our own eyes. Pretti did have a permit for a concealed handgun and appeared to have carried the gun with him, although witnesses say he never reached for it. Tonight Noem doubled down on the lie, saying again: “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

When the Democratic Party’s social media account posted: “ICE agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis this morning. Get ICE out of Minnesota NOW,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller replied: “A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists.” The Democrats’ social media account responded: “You’re a f*cking liar with blood on your hands.”

Miller continued to bang that drum. When Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that “ICE must leave Minneapolis” and that “Congress should not fund this version of ICE—this is seeking confirmation, chaos, and dystopia,” Miller responded: “An assassin tried to murder federal agents and this is your response.” When Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar similarly decried the killing, Miller responded: “A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement and this is your response? You and the state’s entire Democrat leadership team have been flaming the flames of insurrection for the singular purpose of stopping the deportation of illegals who invaded the country.”

Miller is a white nationalist, who has recommended others read a dystopian novel in which people of color “invade” Europe and destroy “Western civilization.” Those who support immigration are, in the book’s telling, enemies who are abetting an “invasion”—a word Miller relies on—that is destroying the culture of white countries. They are working for the “enemy.”

In the wake of Pretti’s shooting, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Minnesota governor Tim Walz to suggest he could “bring back law and order to Minnesota” if he handed over the state’s voter rolls to the Department of Justice. As Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket noted, she explicitly tied the administration’s violence in the state to its determination to get its hands on voters’ personal data before the 2026 election. Minnesota has voted for the Democratic candidate running against Trump in the past three presidential elections, but he insists that he really has won the state each time.

As G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers wrote: Republicans could stop this at any time they wanted to.

“All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dem[ocrat]s to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump—3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.”

Morris also pointed out that in December, Trump’s approval rating was negative in 40 states, including 10 he won in 2024. That covers 30 seats currently held by Republicans. Pretti’s shooting will likely erode Trump’s support further. Tonight, even right-wing podcaster Tim Pool reacted to Pretti’s killing by noting that it looked as if the agent had disarmed Pretti before the other agents shot him. “I don’t see Trump winning this one,” Pool commented.

The funding bill for DHS is effectively dead in the Senate, as Democrats have said they will not support any more funding for DHS. Tonight, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters: “Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.” But the July law the Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act poured nearly $191 billion into DHS through September 30, 2029, with almost $75 billion going to ICE and $67 billion going to Customs and Border Protection (FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, got just $2.9 billion).

Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA) had more to say: “​​What we just saw this morning on the streets of Minneapolis is another outright murder by federal officials. And let me just be clear, those federal ICE officers are absolute cowards. I am a Marine veteran standing here telling you to your face they are unprofessional, pathetic cowards. Because if a Marine, an 18 year old Marine, did that in Iraq in the middle of a war zone, he would be court martialed because it is murder. And you pathetic little cowards who have to wear face masks because you're so damn scared, couldn't even effectively wrestle a guy [to] the ground, so you needed to shoot him? This is why ICE needs to be prosecuted. Yeah, I voted to defund it, but ICE, you need to be prosecuted, and Director [Todd] Lyons, who's running ICE right now, I hope you're hearing this from this Marine to you. You guys are criminal thugs. You need to be held accountable to law if you think you can enforce it, and you need to be prosecuted right now.”

Just hours after the killing of Alex Pretti, agents pinned U.S. citizen Matthew James Allen to the street while he screamed: “I have done nothing at all. My name is Matthew James…Allen. I’m a United States citizen…. You’re gonna kill me! Is that what you want? You want to kill me? You want to kill me on the street? You’re going to have to f*cking kill me! I have done nothing wrong.” Nearby, his sobbing wife screamed: “Stop please! Stop!! Please!! We were just running away from the gas. That’s all we were doing.”

“We all know the poem,” Blue Missouri executive director Jess Piper wrote, “and there is no shade of white that will save you from this murderous regime.”

Tonight, Susan and Michael Pretti, the parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, issued a statement:

“We are heartbroken but also very angry,” they said.

“Alex was 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. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.

“I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. 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 had 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.

“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”

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And just so you get to read both side of this story,

here's Debi Burk Scott's FB version on Jan 24, 5 pm:

While the media is rushing to humanize Alex Jeffrey Pretti by highlighting his nursing license and college background, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is making one thing clear: A resume is not a license to attack federal agents.

The narrative of the "peaceful nurse" is quickly falling apart in the face of forensic evidence and official statements from the front lines of Operation Metro Surge.

DHS has released a photo of the SIG Sauer Emperor Scorpion 9mm handgun recovered at the scene—the same weapon Pretti brandished when he approached agents during a targeted operation.

Pretti wasn't just carrying a gun; he had two loaded magazines and was operating without any form of identification.

Despite his professional background, federal agents report that Pretti "violently resisted" efforts to disarm him, forcing an 8-year veteran agent to fire defensive shots to protect his team.

White House advisors have stated that Pretti’s actions suggest he was acting as a domestic extremist attempting to "assassinate federal law enforcement."

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Occupy Democrats Jan 24, 2:30 pm said:

BREAKING: The footage of federal agents murdering Alex Jeffrey Pretti CLEARLY shows that they disarmed him before executing him on the ground.

On the left is a photograph of Pretti's firearm shared by the Department of Homeland Security account on X. Next to it you see a still image from a video of the killing. It shows an agent running away with Pretti's gun BEFORE the agents opened fire.

You can see the silver-colored slide, silver grip, and black metal receiver. The Sig Sauer sights mounted on top of the pistol are identical.

The order of events is clear here. Agents disarmed Pretti despite him having a legal permit to carry the gun. Once they had taken his gun and he was helpless, the agents fired multiple bullets into him.

This is cold-blooded murder.

Please share to spread the truth!