Within minutes of Alex Pretti being shot and killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing activists, launched a smear campaign against the victim, calling him a “terrorist” and a “lunatic.”
Pretti, 37, was killed during a dispute with immigration officials. Pretti was an American citizen and a registered nurse who worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a colleague who spoke to the Guardian. Video from an onlooker shows Pretti trying to help a woman who was pepper sprayed by an immigration agent when police attacked her.
Pretti’s killing occurred 17 days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three. Good was also 37 years old when he died.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference Saturday that information about what led to Pretti’s altercation and killing was limited, but in a separate press conference, Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who oversees state operations in Minneapolis, said he had a full investigation into what happened.
Bovino said Pretti spoke to police with a 9mm handgun, refused to disarm, and was shot in what he described as an apparent act of self-defense. He said the man had two full magazines and no markings, and he suspects Pretti intended to “kill law enforcement,” and the Border Patrol agent who killed Petri, he said, had extensive training.
The Department of Homeland Security repeated Bovino’s comments in a post on X that had been viewed more than 17 million times at press time, and the story was undoubtedly carried by right-wing outlets, such as the Post Millenial, which published a story titled: “Armed prosecutor Alex Pretti appeared to seek ‘massive damages’ in BP’s Minnesota law enforcement shooting.”
Important parts of these claims are contradicted by publicly available evidence.
Many videos shared on social media after the shooting incident do not show that Pretti’s gun was visible when the police were contacted. An analysis by the New York Times and Bellingcat found that Pretti was clearly carrying a phone, not a gun, when federal officials approached him and forced him to drop it.
On Truth Social, President Donald Trump weighed in on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. “The Mayor and Governor are inciting treason, with their arrogant, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric,” Trump wrote in the post, which included a photo of the gun DHS said Pretti was carrying when he was killed.
Vice President JD Vance supported Trump’s criticism of local leadership, sharing a screenshot of the Truth Social president’s post and writing on X: “When I visited Minnesota, what ICE agents wanted more than anything was to work with local law enforcement to keep the situation on the ground from getting out of hand. Local leadership in Minnesota refused to respond to those requests.”
Also writing in the X, defense secretary Pete Hegseth added to the criticism of Frey and Walz, and the victim shaming: “Shame on Minnesota’s leadership – and the crazies on the street. ICE > MN.”
Walz, in a press conference, called the organization’s story “nonsense.”
“Minnesota’s justice system will have the final say” on Pretti’s murder, Walz said, adding, “the federal government cannot be trusted with this investigation.”
