Nurse killed in Minneapolis unrest
MINNEAPOLIS—A federal immigration officer fatally shot a man in Minneapolis on Saturday, drawing hundreds of protesters onto the frigidly cold streets in a city already shaken by an earlier fatal shooting.
Family members identified the man killed by a US Border Patrol officer as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a nurse at an intensive care unit of a veterans affairs hospital.
They also described Pretti, 37, as an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his Catahoula Leopard dog, who also died recently.
Although Pretti worked for the US Department of Veterans Affairs, he had joined protests following the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs (ICE) officer.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Pretti’s father, Michael. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
Handgun, permit
Court records show that Pretti, a US citizen born in Illinois, had no criminal record. His family also said he never had any interactions with law enforcement beyond a handful of traffic tickets.
His parents, who live in Colorado, said they had a recent conversation with their son and advised him to be careful when joining protests.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, [and we said] go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
Family members said Pretti owned a handgun and had a permit, although they said they had never known him to carry it.
The Department of Homeland Security said the man who was shot had “approached” Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.
But officials did not specify if it was Pretti who brandished the firearm.
In bystander videos of the shooting, he was seen with a phone in his hand but none appeared to show him with a visible weapon.
Pretti’s ex-wife, who spoke to the Associated Press (AP) but later declined to be named, also said he owned at least one semiautomatic handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed firearm.
She described Pretti as someone who might shout at law enforcement officers at a protest, but said she had never known him to be physically confrontational.
She also said Pretti was a Democratic voter who had participated in street protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
‘Wonderful person’
Sue Gitar, who lived downstairs from Pretti in a condominium building about 3.2 kilometers from where he was shot, described him as a “wonderful person” with “a great heart.”
Other neighbors said he was quiet and warmhearted. They said he lived alone and worked long hours as a nurse, but he was not a loner and would sometimes have friends over.
They also knew Pretti had guns—he would occasionally take a rifle to shoot at a gun range—but they were surprised at the idea that he might carry a pistol on the streets.
“I never thought of him as a person who carried a gun,” Gitar said.
There have been daily protests in the Twin Cities since the Jan. 7 shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer who fired into her vehicle.
Pretti was killed just over a mile away from where Good, also 37, was shot.
The Minnesota National Guard has been activated by Gov. Tim Walz and is assisting local police amid the growing protests.
“The federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed yet another life,” Walz said in a statement.
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