Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun – The New York Times
David Guttenfelder / The New York Times
Unrest in Minneapolis
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Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun
Videos analyzed by The New York Times appear to contradict federal accounts of the shooting. The man, an I.C.U. nurse, was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said.
Published Jan. 24, 2026, Updated Jan. 25, 2026, 12:11 p.m. ET
VIDEO ANALYSIS & Video verified by The New York Times shows the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minneapolis ›
Pinned
By Ernesto Londoño, Devon Lum, Hamed Aleaziz, and Mitch Smith – Ernesto Londoño reported from the scene in Minneapolis.
Here’s the latest.
Federal officials sought to portray a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday as a domestic terrorist, saying he wanted to “massacre” law enforcement, even as videos emerged that appeared to directly contradict their account.
The man, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was an intensive-care nurse described by the Minneapolis police chief as a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Federal officials said he was armed, but there is no sign in videos analyzed by The New York Times that he pulled his weapon, or that agents even knew he had one until he was already pinned on the sidewalk.
An agent had already removed Mr. Pretti’s gun when two other agents opened fire, shooting him in the back and as he lay on the ground. At least 10 shots were fired, killing him. Mr. Pretti had a legal permit to carry a firearm, said the police chief, Brian O’Hara.
The shooting on a frigid morning in Minneapolis’s Whittier neighborhood renewed protests and clashes with law enforcement in a city where tensions have reached a breaking point after weeks of aggressive federal immigration action. Federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs to drive demonstrators away from the shooting scene as they demanded that local police officers arrest the agents who killed Mr. Pretti.
Officials said protests in Minneapolis had remained mostly peaceful, with a few exceptions. But as dusk fell, officials deployed the National Guard to ensure that demonstrations did not turn violent. At least 1,000 people turned out for a vigil for Mr. Pretti in Whittier Park on Saturday night, despite subzero temperatures.
A colleague of Mr. Pretti, Dimitri Drekonja, said he had worked as a nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis. “He was a really great colleague and a really great friend,” Mr. Drekonja said. “The default look on his face was a smile.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
- Video analysis: Video footage posted to social media and verified by The Times shows Mr. Pretti stepping between a woman and an agent who is pepper spraying her. Other agents then pepper spray Mr. Pretti, who is holding a phone in one hand and nothing in the other. His weapon remains concealed until federal agents find and take it from him. Concealed or open carry is legal for permit holders in Minnesota. Read more ›
- Federal claims: President Trump and administration officials declared without evidence that Mr. Pretti intended to attack federal agents. Gregory Bovino, the official in charge of the president’s Border Patrol operations, said that Mr. Pretti was intent on a “massacre.” Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage.” Their accounts directly contradict video evidence of the encounter. Read more ›
- Investigators blocked: Drew Evans, who heads the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said federal agents had initially barred state investigators from the scene of Saturday’s shooting. Mr. Evans said his agency took the rare step of obtaining a search warrant for access to a public sidewalk, but were still stymied. Federal officials eventually left the scene after clashing with protesters, but the demonstrations had grown large enough by that point to prevent state agents from investigating.
- Self-investigation: Federal authorities said the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE and Border Patrol, would lead the federal shooting investigation, with assistance from the F.B.I. But senior Homeland Security and Justice Department officials said it was already clear that Mr. Pretti and local officials were to blame.
- Minneapolis outrage: Mayor Jacob Frey accused the Trump administration of terrorizing his city. “How many more Americans need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” he asked. At least two other people have been shot there by federal agents this month, including Renee Good, 37, who was killed on Jan. 7. Read more ›
- “Force of good”: Accolades poured in for Mr. Pretti from those who knew him. Ruth Anway, another nurse who worked with him, described Mr. Pretti as a passionate colleague and kind friend with a sharp sense of humor. “He wanted to be helpful, to help humanity, and have a career that was a force of good in the world,” she said. Read more ›
Jan. 25, 2026, 12:12 a.m. ET, Jan. 25, 2026, By Mitch Smith, Midwest reporter
Lawyers for the state of Minnesota, as well as the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, renewed their calls on Saturday night for a federal judge to temporarily block the surge in immigration enforcement. A hearing on that case is scheduled for Monday.
“The need for emergency relief is urgent and undeniable,” the lawyers said in a letter.
Jan. 24, 2026, 11:51 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2026
Shawn Hubler
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said the city had filed an amicus brief in a federal lawsuit calling for a halt to the Trump administration’s deployment of federal agents in Minneapolis and St. Paul. “This violence has to stop and the President must remove these armed, federal forces from Minneapolis and other American cities,” she said in a statement.
Read Bondi’s Letter to Minnesota’s Governor
Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Saturday that blamed him and other Democratic officials for allowing “lawlessness” in the state. It was not immediately clear if the letter had been sent before or after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.
Jan. 24, 2026, 11:40 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2026
Mitch Smith, Midwest reporter
Witnesses describe the fatal shooting in court filings.
Federal agents in Minneapolis at the scene of the fatal shooting on Saturday. Credit…David Guttenfelder / The New York Times
A doctor who lives near the scene where Alex Jeffrey Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday described in a sworn court filing how agents initially hesitated and asked for proof of a medical license when the doctor tried to approach and render aid. And a person who said they were standing near Mr. Pretti disputed the Department of Homeland Security’s account of that incident in another sworn court filing.
The shooting of Mr. Pretti, 37, renewed protests and clashes with law enforcement in a city where tensions over aggressive federal immigration action are high. Video footage of the encounter appeared to contradict parts of the federal government’s narrative of what happened, and the latest court filings raised further questions.
The doctor, whose name was redacted from the publicly available version of the court filing, described themselves as a pediatrician and said they had witnessed parts of the encounter from a nearby apartment. Though their view was from a distance, they described seeing a man being shoved to the ground and then shot several times. After the gunfire, they described going outside, telling an agent that they were a physician and asking to check the person who had been shot.
The doctor said they were initially turned down, but eventually allowed to go to the person after being patted down.
“Normally, I would not have been so persistent,” the doctor said in their statement, “but as a physician, I felt a professional and moral obligation to help this man, especially since none of the agents were helping him.”
The doctor described checking for a pulse, finding none, and then beginning C.P.R. The man appeared to have been shot several times, the doctor said. Shortly after he started C.P.R., emergency medical personnel arrived and took over, the doctor said.\
Read a Witness Statement on the Pretti Shooting
A doctor described in a sworn court filing how agents initially hesitated when the doctor tried to approach and render aid to Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Read Document
After the shooting, the doctor described returning home as protests intensified.
“I was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably,” they said in the statement.
Once tear gas began seeping into their apartment from the street below, they said they got in a car and drove to a friend’s home.
“I am not sure when I will return to my apartment,” the doctor wrote. “I do not feel safe in my city.”
Almost immediately after agents shot Mr. Pretti on Saturday morning, federal officials claimed that he had endangered agents with a gun he was carrying, and some later accused him of “domestic terrorism.”
But videos on social media that were verified by The New York Times appear to contradict portions of the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the shooting, and the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, said that Mr. Pretti was believed to be licensed to legally carry a gun.
Another person who said they witnessed the shooting also submitted a sworn statement in court on Saturday. Like the doctor’s statement, it was filed as part of a lawsuit challenging federal agents’ interactions with protesters.
“I have read the statement from D.H.S. about what happened and it is wrong,” said that person, who described themselves as a children’s entertainer specializing in face painting. “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.
That witness described hearing whistles — which Minneapolis residents have used to alert people to the presence of immigration agents — and going toward the noise to observe and record on Saturday morning.
The person said they walked toward an area where someone was being thrown to the ground and then started filming. When an agent asked them to move back, the witness said, they slowly did so. Another man who was in the street and who was also recording remained there and continued filming, the witness said.
“The man stayed in the street, filming as the other observers I mentioned earlier were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray,” the witness statement said. “The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn’t see him reach for or hold a gun.”
One person was thrown to the ground by an agent, the witness said, and pepper spray was used. The man who had been filming — almost certainly Mr. Pretti, though no name was used in the court filing — tried to help the person who had fallen, the statement said.
Read a Witness Statement on the Pretti Shooting
A person who described themselves as a children’s entertainer said they witnessed the shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Read Document
“The agents pulled the man on the ground,” the statement said, adding that the witness was perhaps five feet away. “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.”
The court filing said that a video taken by the witness was also filed with the court, but that footage was not immediately accessible through an online court records system.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the witness statements.
Those sworn statements were filed as part of a lawsuit backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota that accused federal agents of repeatedly violating protesters’ rights during a recent surge of immigration enforcement. The federal judge hearing that case issued an injunction earlier this month that imposed restrictions on agents. The Trump administration appealed, and an appellate court issued an administrative stay this week that blocked the injunction.
On Saturday, lawyers for the protesters filed an emergency motion that asked the appellate court to allow the injunction to go back into effect.
Jan. 24, 2026, 11:38 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2026
Orlando Mayorquin
In California, thousands of protesters gathered for anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, among other cities. Protesters in downtown L.A. blew whistles in solidarity with immigrant neighborhoods across the country, where people have begun using the sound to signal ICE sightings. One man carried the state flags of California and Minnesota, tied together.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
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