US President Donald Trump’s promised drive against illegal immigration is facing stronger headwinds after the shooting death of a second US citizen in protests against increasingly controversial armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents.
Just two weeks after the fatal shooting of protester Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, another US citizen was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Saturday in the ongoing and increasingly embattled initiative in the name of the Trump administration’s crackdown.
Thirty-seven-year-old Alex Pretti worked as a nurse. Police say he was a lawful gun owner, and his only known interaction with law enforcement was related to parking tickets.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy has called for “a full joint federal and state investigation”. He has described events in Minneapolis as “incredibly disturbing”, adding that the “credibility” of ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security is “at stake”.
“There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth,” he wrote on social media.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) joined other US gun lobby groups in calling for a “full investigation” by the Trump administration into the killing of Pretti. The NRA labelled a suggestion by a federal prosecutor that people who carry guns risk being lawfully shot by officers as “dangerous and wrong”.
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalisations and demonising law-abiding citizens,” the NRA said in a statement.
The NRA, which usually is typically aligned with Donald Trump, was reacting to comments from First Assistant US Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli on Saturday night.
Essayli wrote on social media: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!”
Gun Owners of America said in a statement: “The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting, a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”
Republican Thomas Massie said: “Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.”
According to the BBC, videos have emerged showing a scuffle between federal agents and the man in the lead up to the shooting. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the agents fired in self-defence after Pretti, who they say had a handgun, resisted their attempts to disarm him.
Eyewitnesses, local officials and the victim’s family have challenged that account, pointing out he had a phone in his hand, not a weapon. His parents accused the administration of spreading “sickening lies” about what happened.
Protests broke out in various other cities as opposition to the heavy-handed anti-immigrant campaign grew. According to The Guardian, large protests spread across US cities on Saturday – including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.
Attention focuses sharply on the veracity and force of statements by political leaders.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was asked to clarify if Pretti had brandished a gun. She said: “Individuals showed up to impede a law enforcement operation and assaulted our officers.
“They responded according to their training, and took action to defend the officer’s life and those of the public around him. And, I don’t know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, said he understood the risk of people trying to bear witness and document the actions of federal agents.
“Thank God, thank God, we have video because, according to DHS, these seven heroic guys took an onslaught of a battalion against them or something. It’s nonsense, people. It is nonsense, and it’s lies.”
In a later news conference, Walz said someone needed to be held accountable for the shooting and renewed calls for Trump to get ICE agents out of Minneapolis.
He added: “This is an inflection point, America,” he said. “If we cannot all agree that the smearing of an American citizen and besmirching everything they stood for and asking us not to believe what we saw, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Earlier, Trump said the mayor of Minneapolis (Jacob Frey, who likened the federal operation to an invasion and accused ICE of “trying to spin this as an action of self-defence”) and the governor of Minnesota were fomenting an “insurrection”.
In a social media post, Trump shared an image that the DHS has shared of what it says is the gun carried by Pretti.
In a social media post, Trump writes: “Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers? The Mayor and the Governor called them off? It is stated that many of these Police were not allowed to do their job, that ICE had to protect themselves — Not an easy thing to do!
“The mayor and governor are inciting insurection, with their pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric… LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB!”
Writing on X, Vice-President JD Vance described events in Minneapolis as “engineered chaos”, adding: “It is the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
According to The Guardian, two witnesses to the killing of Pretti have said in sworn testimony that the 37-year-old was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis, contradicting a claim made by Trump administration officials, who sought to cast the shooting of a prone man as an act of self-defence.
Their accounts came in sworn affidavits that were filed in federal court in Minnesota late Saturday, just hours after Pretti’s killing, as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Minneapolis protesters against Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials directing the immigration crackdown in the city.
One witness is a woman who filmed the clearest video of the fatal shooting; the other is a physician who lives nearby and said they were initially prevented by federal officers from rendering medical aid to the gunshot victim.
The names of both witnesses were redacted in the publicly available filings.
In her testimony, the woman who filmed the shooting from just behind Pretti wearing a pink coat identified herself as “a children’s entertainer who specializes in face painting”. She testified that she came to the scene on her way to work because “I’ve been involved in observing in my community, because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors”.
She described the harrowing scene of Pretti being tackled by federal officers after coming to the aid of another observer the agents had shoved to the ground. One federal agent then sprayed a chemical agent in the faces of Pretti and the woman he had tried to help.
The woman testified that she saw no sign of Pretti holding a gun at any point.
She said: “The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn’t see him touch any of them – he wasn’t even turned toward them. It didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn’t see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times … I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him …”
She continued: “I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.
“I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me, and I don’t feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don’t know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they’re not telling the truth about what happened.”
The second witness, a 29-year-old physician, said in their testimony that they saw the shooting from their apartment window near the scene. Before the shooting, the witness said, they could see Pretti yelling at agents, but “did not see him attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind”.
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