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Federal Agents Kill Another Person in Minneapolis: Updates

27 1
25.01.2026

The horrifying Trump administration crackdown in Minneapolis once again turned deadly on Saturday morning. On Nicollet Avenue near West 26th street in the Whittier neighborhood of south Minneapolis, CBP agents subdued and then suddenly opened fire on Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old local ICU nurse who appeared to be filming the agents just moments before. DHS and CBP officials say the Pretti was carrying a gun and that he attacked the officers. But as was the case in the fatal shooting of Renee Good earlier this month, video footage appears to contradict their story, showing Pretti just holding a phone at the time he was confronted, and a CBP agent taking away his gun before the other officers opened fire. It’s the third shooting and second homicide involving federal officers in the city in the past three weeks. Here’s what we know about what happened, the aftermath, and the response.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) says on CBS he’s on board with Schumer & the rest of the Dem caucus —

“I hate shutdowns. I’m one of the people who helped negotiate the solution to end the last shutdown. But I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances.”

Politico reports that with the opposition rising among Senate Democrats to the DHS funding bill, there isn’t much time for a compromise, even if one were possible:

stripping out the DHS bill before the Friday deadline would require every senator to agree — something Republicans aren’t likely to be able to get. Any changes to the package, meanwhile, will require sending it back to the House, which has already left town until after the shutdown deadline.


Instead, Republicans believe it’s up to Democrats to decide whether or not to vote against the funding package and avoid a partial shutdown. GOP leaders aren’t currently expected to bring the House back early from its break, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy.


Democratic aides, meanwhile, privately acknowledged Saturday that the odds of a shutdown were rising, though some questioned what alternatives are available if Democrats block the pending six-bill package.

CBP commander Gregory Bovino, FBI director Kash Patel, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, and DHS secretary Kristi Noem all hit the airwaves on Sunday morning and made a number of claims about what happened to Pretti that are not supported by the visual evidence. When pressed on that lack of evidence, they all cited the need for the investigation to be completed.

On CNN’s State of the Union, Bovino was asked why Pretti was shot multiple times when videos appear to show he was posing no threat to the CBP agents. Bovino then objected to “freeze frame adjudication” of the crime scene and insisted on waiting for the results of the investigation. He also repeatedly suggested Pretti had impeded and assaulted the CBP agents, but didn’t really back that up:

BOVINO: He was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforceme--

BASH: But he wasn't impeding. He was filming, which is a legal thing to do in the United States

BOVINO: Dana, let's not free frame adjudicate this now pic.twitter.com/QJ0LlPZTaT

And he said the CBP agents were the victims:

BASH: It feels as though you're blaming the victim here

BOVINO: The victims are the Border Patrol agents. I'm not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victims are the Border Patrol agents. pic.twitter.com/rjmB7bOzrn

Bovino also confirmed that the agents involved in the shooting had been moved to administrative tasks and were not still working out on the streets of Minneapolis.

On Meet the Press, Blanche didn’t offer any confirmation or evidence that Pretti brandished a gun at the CBP agents, saying there was an investigation underway, and then he denied suggesting Pretti was acting violently, instead alleging he was not “protesting peacefully”:

Blanche: He was not protesting peacefully…. He was screaming in the face of ICE. He had a phone up right in ICE’s face. Is that protesting peacefully? pic.twitter.com/8V09uFpgot

Patel got pressed by Fox News’ Maria Baritromo on what Pretti had done to threaten the CBP agents, and he defaulted to repeating what Noem had said Saturday, that by bringing a gun, that meant he was a threat:

This is completely incorrect on Minnesota law.

There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota. https://t.co/m2EHW2zFEa

Patel: No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines and you do not get to touch law enforcement.

Bartiromo: But how was he threatening border patrol? He had a camera. He was filming it. pic.twitter.com/uSfLcIeW9p

Noem on Sunday claimed that Pretti was being aggressive and then assaulted the CBP officers, and also suggested another offense was showing up “with weapons, no ID, and no indication of how they’re would be used”

Doocy: Where does it go from peaceful protest to I’m going to get shot to death?

Noem: You shouldn't show up with weapons, no ID, and no indication of how they're going to be used. pic.twitter.com/WcPVRs2bQp

At Just Security, former U.S. prosecutor Julia Gegenheimer explains how a solid unbiased investigation into the shooting would proceed, including the questions investigators need to answer:

If true that Pretti threatened agents with a firearm, the investigation could potentially show that one or both agents’ actions were not in violation of the law. (Such a showing will be more difficult for any agent who fired shots after Pretti lay motionless on the ground.) So, specific facts related to this firearm are significant. From the standpoint of a federal criminal civil rights violation, such facts bear on whether an agent’s use of deadly force was excessive and on the agent’s intent. On the first question: an agent’s force will be justified only if it was objectively reasonable under the circumstances present and known at the time. That means information discovered only after the fact can’t be used to retroactively justify the force. Whether Pretti brandished a gun at the agents, and whether agents were able to disarm him or secure his hands before the shooting, bears directly on the question of imminent risk of harm to the agents and the objective reasonableness of the deadly force used here. Similarly, on the issue of intent: a gun clearly brandished at the agents would corroborate claims of self-defense; what’s more, a good-faith defense could be supported by evidence that the agents who shot Pretti did not realize he had already been disarmed. Conversely, any efforts to justify the shooting based on a firearm that had already been confiscated or did not play a role in the scuffle could suggest the agents’ consciousness of wrongdoing.

She also notes some warning lights that this won’t be a proper investigation (apart from the fact that numerous Trump administration officials already seem to have decided and declared what happened):

The photo DHS posted of the firearm suggests possible missteps in how the federal government appears to have handled the crime scene. The firearm’s location directly bears on whether the agent’s force was excessive and intentional. Assuming the gun was not found on the seat of that car, it had been moved before being photographed. Perhaps an agent disarmed Pretti and immediately placed it on the car seat to photograph. Even if its precise location and condition on the scene had been documented earlier, by the time of the photograph the gun had not been placed in an evidence bag, labeled, or stored securely. Without additional documentation, the photo raises serious questions about the reliability of any later ballistics or forensic testing on that item.  


Furthermore, despite best practices, DHS reportedly tried to keep away from the area state and local law enforcement—officers presumably better experienced and equipped than federal immigration officials in how to safely and efficiently process a crime scene. Federal agents also reportedly detained and transported several bystanders (potential witnesses) to the Whipple Federal Building, a federal courthouse, office space, and detention center near the Minneapolis airport.

At the Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper writes that he decided to stop carrying his concealed licensed handgun after hearing that ICE agents might soon begin targeting the Somalian community in southern Maine, where he lives:

What happens if I’m harassed or grabbed by an ICE agent for walking down the street without my passport, and an agent feels the pistol beneath my sweatshirt? What happens, God forbid, if my Glock dislodges from my appendix holster while I’m being roughly detained? I worried that, in such an event, ICE officers—poorly trained, trigger-happy—might panic and shoot me out of fear, even if I was doing nothing illegal or threatening. I worried, too, that they might not even bother to learn Maine’s gun laws before descending on my state.

He says Pretti’s death at the hands of CBP agents in Minneapolis “made it clear that my paranoia was justified.” He adds that it “also made it clear that it is not only minorities who are having their First, Fourth, and now Second Amendment rights trampled by the federal government” — and what happened to Pretti should be a wake-up call for everyone who believes in those rights:

Whether they lean right or left, are pro-immigration or have more restrictionist views, my fellow gun owners should understand the message that is being sent by this administration: If you exercise your constitutionally protected right to bear arms, masked federal agents can murder you in cold blood, simply because an American citizen exercising their Second Amendment rights scares them. This isn’t about politics; it is about the rights that make our politics possible in the first place.

Late Saturday, a federal judge in Minnesota granted the request Hennepin County prosecutors and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension made for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from altering or destroying any evidence it collected about the shooting.

BREAKING: A federal judge has just ordered the Trump administration to preserve all evidence from the shooting of Alex Pretti today in Minneapolis.

This order comes after a request from Hennepin County prosecutors, seeking to prevent the destruction of evidence in Pretti's case. pic.twitter.com/7RqdDUuvF7

Do not let anyone tell you that you shouldn't record law enforcement (so long as you're not physically impeding them). Citizen video has decisively rebutted the administration's lies. The evidence of our eyes contradicts the dishonesty of the administration's words.

As CNN’s Brian Stelter points out, eyewitness footage has not only cast quick and crucial light on multiple major incidents like the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, it has become an essential way to bear witness to and understand what’s happening in the state

Almost every TV segment from Minnesota has featured viral video footage. Almost every written article has cited the footage, too. Professional photographers, social media influencers and ordinary Minnesotans have all captured indelible videos and photos in recent weeks.


In some ways, the........

© Daily Intelligencer