Killing of Alex Pretti
On January 24, 2026, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old American intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, was shot multiple times and killed by United States Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The incident occurred amid widespread protests against Operation Metro Surge, especially following the killing of Renée Good on January 7 by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Pretti was filming law enforcement agents with his phone and directing traffic. At one point, he stood between an agent and a woman whom the agent had pushed to the ground, putting his arm around the woman. He was then pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by several federal agents, with around six surrounding him when he was shot and killed. Bystander video verified and reviewed by Reuters, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press appears to show an agent removing a gun and moving away from Pretti roughly one second before another agent fires at him. AP reported that a voice can be heard saying "gun, gun" right before the first shot.
Pretti was legally licensed to carry a handgun. In reviewing video evidence, Reuters, the BBC, The New York Times, CNN, and The Guardian all concluded that he was holding a cell phone, not a gun, in the moments before being tackled and pinned to the ground. Agents appear to have shot at him at least ten times within five seconds, continuing after he lay motionless. A civilian recounted how nearly two dozen witnesses to the shooting were taken to and detained at the federally-controlled Whipple Building for hours before being released. As with the Renée Good case, state investigators were denied access to the shooting scene by the federal government. Later, the county medical examiner ruled Pretti's death a homicide.
The Trump administration initially defended the shooting, though many of its claims were contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony. The shooting accelerated ongoing protests against US immigration forces locally and nationally. The killing and the government's defense provoked widespread criticism, including from Republicans, forcing Trump to attempt a course correction. This move has been viewed with skepticism by local activists, who expect continued immigration enforcement in the region. Comments by Trump administration officials denouncing Pretti's possession of a firearm were condemned by gun rights groups, such as the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, citing his rights under the Second Amendment.
Background
Operation Metro Surge
One of the key campaign promises of Donald Trump was to crack down on illegal immigration. In December 2025, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement began Operation Metro Surge to target the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, later expanding to all of Minnesota. Federal agents made more than 3,000 arrests and drew widespread criticism, particularly for "warrantless arrests", "aggressive clashes with protestors", detentions of United States citizens, and shootings. On January 7, a federal agent fatally shot Renée Good, an incident that set off protests that drew thousands. The following week, a Venezuelan man, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, was shot in the leg by an immigration officer and survived.Alex Pretti
Alex Jeffrey Pretti was a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who lived in the Lyndale neighborhood of Minneapolis. Pretti was born in Park Ridge, a suburb near Chicago, to a family with northern Italian ancestry. He grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and graduated from Preble High School in 2006. He attended the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, where he received a bachelor's degree with a major in biology, society and environment in 2011.Pretti was hired in 2014 as a research assistant in the clinical research program at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System. He had been a registered nurse in Minnesota since 2021. At the time of his death, Pretti held an active nursing license and was an intensive care nurse at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis. He was a member of the American Federation of Government Employees. According to Chief Brian O'Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department, Pretti had a Minnesota state permit to carry a gun, and had no criminal record.
Pretti participated in protests against the killing of Renée Good earlier in January 2026. His father told reporters that Pretti acknowledged warnings from his parents to be careful while protesting.
Shooting
Alex Pretti was shot multiple times by Border Patrol agents near the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis. A witness stated that ICE agents attempted to enter a doughnut shop minutes before the shooting; a person they were pursuing had entered the shop, after which the employees locked the doors. Pretti, who was across the street, was observing and attempting to direct traffic. The shooting happened less than from his home, and was the third shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in three weeks.According to Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, the federal agents involved in the shooting were attempting to detain an undocumented immigrant with a "significant criminal history". After reviewing its own records and those of the state courts, the Minnesota Department of Corrections reported that the individual Bovino named had no criminal history in Minnesota, and had only misdemeanor traffic offenses from more than a decade earlier. The man whom agents were pursuing was an immigrant from Ecuador who said he had been in the United States for over two decades. His deportation case had been administratively closed in May 2022, according to Justice Department immigration court records, and he had applied for a U visa. He later said he was working as a rideshare driver picking up a delivery order when agents began following him. He said he parked his car, entered a local business where someone locked the door behind him, and remained hidden for approximately four hours. The locked door prevented the agents from entering, which reportedly caused the agents to call for backup and become aggressive toward observers, including Pretti.
Videos showed Pretti recording agents alongside two other civilians when two agents walked into the street to confront them. One agent pushed a civilian wearing an orange backpack 28 seconds before the first shot was fired. Pretti moved toward the sidewalk, attempting to help two others being pushed by agents. Pretti stood between the agent and a woman being pushed, "briefly putting his hand on the agent's waist", and was pepper-sprayed by the agent. Pretti held up his hands, with one hand holding his phone and the other held up to protect himself from being maced. Pretti reached to wrap his arms around the fallen woman, "apparently trying to help her up". An agent shoved Pretti, and Pretti and the woman fell, still embracing.
According to The New York Times, Pretti then "trie to pull away, and... no threatening movements towards the agents", who "pull him backwards and force him to the ground", Pretti was restrained by several agents on the ground, with both of his arms "pinned down by his head". The agent that pepper-sprayed Pretti hit him with the pepper spray canister multiple times. Another agent in gray removed Pretti's firearm from his hip. A third agent, who had been focused on trying to pepper-spray the fallen woman and had his back to Pretti, turned around to Pretti after hearing someone yell that he had a gun. Around five seconds later this third agent drew his weapon and shot Pretti at close range, with his arm visibly recoiling in recordings of the event.
When the first shot was fired, Pretti's gun had already been removed by an agent in gray, and the shooter was "standing behind Pretti and not under direct threat". The shooter also had the sightline to see that the agent in gray had removed the gun, but it is unknown whether he witnessed the removal. The shooter fired three more shots into the back of Pretti, who appeared "to brace himself against the pavement" with one hand still holding his phone and his other hand holding his glasses. Pretti collapsed to the ground, and the agent who pepper-sprayed Pretti took out his gun. He, along with the first shooter, fired six more shots at Pretti as he lay motionless on the ground. The two agents had fired a total of 10 shots in five seconds. According to analysis by The New York Times, agents yelled that Pretti had a gun approximately eight seconds after he had been pinned to the ground.
DHS said that Pretti approached Border Patrol officers with a handgun, and an agent sprayed mace before firing defensive shots after attempting to disarm him. Video of the incident showed Pretti's phone in his right hand and nothing in his left hand. In sworn testimony, two witnesses said that Pretti did not brandish a gun, and a frame-by-frame analysis of video by the BBC reached the same conclusion. Multiple videos showed a federal agent pulling a gun from the scuffle matching the description later given by DHS. According to The Wall Street Journal: "A frame-by-frame review ... shows a federal officer pulling a handgun away from Pretti. Less than a second later, an agent fires several rounds."
Officers backed away from Pretti's body, where they remained for about 45 seconds. When the agents returned, one kneeled next to Pretti's body and asked where the gun was. A physician present before emergency medical services arrived was initially prevented from assessing Pretti's condition by immigration agents because they were not carrying their physician's license. The physician later stated in a court filing that the officers appeared to be counting bullet holes rather than providing first aid, and Pretti had not been placed in the position to provide CPR. When the physician was eventually allowed access, they observed at least three bullet wounds in Pretti's back, one in the upper-left chest, and one possible bullet wound to the neck. The physician provided CPR until medics arrived. DHS stated that medics rendered aid to Pretti and that he died at the scene, though the medical examiner's autopsy report latter included his place of death as the Hennepin County Medical Center.
Border Patrol on-site commander Gregory Bovino said an officer who shot Pretti had been serving with the agency for eight years and had "extensive training as a Range Safety Officer". Bovino reported that, all agents present at the scene of the shooting were still on the job, though they had been placed on administrative duty and/or relocated out of Minneapolis for the officers' safety. Bovino added that the involved "will remain Border Patrol agents".