Man fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis was ICU nurse, believed U.S. citizen

MINNEAPOLIS – A U.S. Border Patrol officer fatally shot a man in Minneapolis shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday, federal officials said, in the third shooting involving federal immigration agents in recent weeks.

The victim of the shooting was Alexander “Alex” Pretti, 37, of Minneapolis, who was an intensive care nurse, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the victim was believed to be an American citizen and appeared to lawfully own a gun. Federal officials have said that U.S. Border Patrol agents were conducting a “targeted operation” to apprehend a person who was in the country illegally when a man with a 9mm handgun approached them, Assistant Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

The incident is sparking protests and clashes between demonstrators and authorities and recriminations from state and local officials.

Minnesota officials have mobilized the state’s National Guard to support Hennepin County’s sheriff department and other agencies. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz forcefully called on the Trump administration to pull back on its surge in immigration enforcement in the state and said the federal government could “not be trusted to lead this investigation” of the shooting.

This is the third shooting in Minneapolis involving federal agents in recent weeks. On Jan. 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Renée Good in her car, an incident that sparked widespread protests. ICE agents also shot a man in the leg as he attempted to evade arrest on Jan. 14, federal officials said.

Pretti was an intensive care nurse dedicated to treating veterans, said Dr. Aasma Shaukat, who said she hired Pretti at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System about a decade ago.

“Alex was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest soul you ever met,” Shaukat said.

Shaukat, now a physician and clinical researcher at the Manhattan VA Medical Center, hired Pretti for a research position.

“He was very bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, he wanted to get into the health care field, work with patients and be a nurse,” she recalled, and “he did wonderful. Did his work really well, was a team player.”

After finishing nursing school, Pretti returned to the Minneapolis VA as an intensive care nurse, she said. “He wanted to serve the veterans, just had a high sense of duty and thought they were a vulnerable group in the country who needed our help,” she said.

During the past year Shaukat moved to New York but still had family in Minneapolis and would visit Pretti.

“He was excited about his future and his work. Being an ICU nurse is tough – it’s pretty intense. But he was looking forward to getting a place, a car,” she said.

Pretti did not talk about politics, she said. “But when things got brought up, he always stood for people and human rights, helping fellow citizens and just being a good citizen of society and the communities that he lived in,” Shaukat said.

Shaukat described bystanders’ video of the shooting as “horrific. They (federal officers) look like trained militia. Clearly, they’re emboldened.”

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said his investigative team secured a search warrant to examine the crime scene where Saturday morning’s fatal shooting occurred but was denied access by federal officials.

Evans said the warrant was “an unusual move in a public area like that. But we did that attempting to have judicial approval to enter the scene to gather evidence.”

Evans said the Department of Homeland Security has not provided state investigators with the names of the federal officers involved in Saturday’s shooting or the federal agents involved in other recent shootings in the state.

Walz said at a news conference that he was thankful there was video documentation of Saturday’s fatal shooting, saying that DHS’s description of what took place was “nonsense.”

“Thank God we have video because, according to DHS, these seven heroic guys took on an onslaught of a battalion against them or something. It’s nonsense, people. It is nonsense, and it’s lies,” he added. ” … The American public knows, and this needs to be the event that says enough.”

Walz confirmed that the state’s National Guard had been activated. Maj. Gen. Shawn Manke said that on Saturday morning, the Guard began responding to a request for support from the Hennepin County Sheriff to provide security at the Whipple Building – a home base for federal immigration agents in the area – and was preparing to respond to other requests from local law enforcement.

“We are mobilizing more soldiers as we talk at this time,” Manke said.

Walz said he would be “billing” the federal government for the resources.

DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem reiterated the administration’s view that the victim in the shooting was interfering with law enforcement.

“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers,” Noem said in a news conference.

“These agents took actions to defend their lives,” she said later.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey repeated his demand that President Donald Trump remove federal agents from the city, imploring him to “act like a leader” and “put Minneapolis, put America first at this moment.”

He blamed the heightened chaos in the city on the Trump administration’s policies.

“I’m done being told that our community members are responsible for the vitriol in our streets. I’m done being told that our local elected officials are responsible for turning down the temperature,” Frey said.

“Just yesterday, we saw 15,000 people peacefully protesting in the streets, speaking out and standing up for their neighbors. Not a single broken window, not a single injury,” he said. “Those peaceful protests embody the very principles that both Minneapolis and America was founded upon.”

Over the past few months, U.S. Border Patrol has been playing an increasingly visible role in immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States, far from the border regions where they are typically deployed.

That’s prompted concern from current and former DHS officials, who note that those agents are accustomed to confronting cartels and illegal border crossings rather than protesters in urban areas.

The tactics of Border Patrol agents, including their use of teargas to disperse demonstrators, came under scrutiny in Chicago after the administration launched “Operation Midway Blitz” last year as part of the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Democrats from the Minnesota congressional delegation swiftly condemned the latest shooting in Minneapolis by federal agents.

“This appears to be an execution by immigration enforcement,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area. “This isn’t isolated or accidental. The Trump administration is trying to beat us into submission rather than protect us.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is preparing to launch a run for governor, implored Trump and “all your lieutenants who ordered this ICE surge” to watch the video of today’s shooting.

“Thousands of citizens stopped and harassed. Local police no longer able to do their work. Kids hiding. Schools closed. Get ICE out of Minnesota NOW,” she said. “And Republicans in Congress: Stop your silence and stop being complicit.”

The DHS in early January said it was sending 2,000 federal agents and officers to the Minneapolis area in part to crack down on allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.

Sen. Tina Smith called the shooting “catastrophic” and demanded that federal agents leave the state so local police “can secure the scene and do their jobs.”

Senators will vote next week to fund the government for the fiscal year, including whether to keep DHS functioning for the rest of the fiscal year. House Democrats largely voted against the funding bill earlier this week, citing that it lacks critical reforms to rein in ICE agents amid the growing violence.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans were quick to take sides following the fatal shooting, further polarizing the debate surrounding Department of Homeland Security actions across the country.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., blamed “Masked and lawless DHS agents” and “Donald Trump’s extremists” for having “unleashed this carnage on the streets of America.”

“They must all be held criminally accountable to the full extent of the law,” he wrote on X.

His statement ran at odds with the highest ranking Minnesotan in Congress, Republican Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who blamed Democratic leaders in his home state for making Minneapolis more dangerous. Other Republican lawmakers have come to the defense of the DHS and decried reactions by Democrats.

“Declaring today’s shooting in Minnesota as ‘murder’ before the facts are known and demonizing Law Enforcement is reckless. Leaders should cool the rhetoric,” Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., said. “Courts have long held that use of force is judged based on what was reasonable at the time-not 20/20 hindsight or political hyperbole. We’re better than that.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., echoed fellow Democrats, noting that “Trump’s paramilitary forces” and “masked thugs must be identified, investigated, and brought to justice.”