In their words: Trump officials portray Pretti as an armed man intent on harming officers
Jan 26, 2026, 10:32 AM | Updated: 1:30 pm
Trump administration officials swiftly sought to portray 37-year-old Alex Pretti as an armed disruptor intent on doing harm to federal agents when he brought his own gun to a Minneapolis street where officers clashed with protestors over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Video shot by bystanders and reviewed by The Associated Press appears to contradict some of those statements.
In their own words, this is what the Trump administration has said about Pretti and the circumstances around his death, and what is shown on videos of the shooting:
During a news conference on Saturday in the hours after the shooting, Border Patrol senior official Greg Bovino, the public face of the crackdown, blamed the shooting on Pretti, saying that it appeared that Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital, “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” In a Department of Homeland Security statement, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin used the same words.
At a news conference on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti had gone to the streets “to perpetuate violence. And he was asked to show up and to continue to resist by a governor who’s irresponsible and has a long history of corruption and lying.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Bovino said that Pretti “injected himself” into the crime scene and was “not there to document.” Bovino said Pretti came there “for a specific reason,” but said, “what that reason is, we’re going to find out more about that in the coming days.”
WHAT WE KNOW: Pretti was one of many protesters on Nicollet Avenue Saturday morning. In a seven-minute video obtained by The Associated Press that shows the moments leading up to Pretti’s killing, he and others are holding up phones, apparently recording officer activity. Protesters are yelling out at the officers. Pretti can be seen talking to an officer, who pushes him back to the sidewalk, but it’s not clear what he is saying.
Pretti can be seen with only a phone in his hand. No footage appears to show him brandishing a weapon, although the videos don’t show every moment leading up to the confrontation.
Pretti is seen being held down by several officers when someone says “gun, gun.” An officer appears to pull a handgun from Pretti’s waist area and begins moving away. Then the first shot is heard.
Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
Also Saturday, Bovino said that Pretti “violently resisted” when agents tried to disarm him.
Noem echoed that account, saying agents fired “fearing for his life and for the lives of his fellow officers.”
WHAT WE KNOW: The videos show Pretti stepping in after an immigration officer shoves a woman. Pretti appears to be holding his phone, but there’s no sign he’s holding a weapon.
Pretti moves between the two and reaches his hands out toward the officer. The officer deploys pepper spray. Pretti is seen turning his face away and raising an empty hand. The officer grabs Pretti’s hand to bring it behind his back and deploys the pepper spray again, pushing him away.
Pretti is struggling next to the other protester when the officer grabs hold of Pretti and separates them. The officer is now joined by several others and they force Pretti to the ground as he struggles. An officer holding a canister strikes him several times.
A first shot is fired by a Border Patrol officer. There’s a slight pause, and then the same officer fires several more times into Pretti’s back. Multiple officers back off. Within seconds, Pretti is motionless on the street.
On Sunday, the Republican president in two lengthy social media posts said that Democrats had encouraged people to obstruct law enforcement operations, also calling on officials in Minnesota to work with immigration officers and “turn over” people who were in the U.S. illegally.
“Tragically, two American Citizens have lost their lives as a result of this Democrat ensued chaos,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.
Vice President JD Vance also blamed local officials in a series of posts and described what was happening in Minneapolis as “engineered chaos” that was “the direct consequence of far left agitators, working with local authorities.”
WHAT WE KNOW: As a precursor for last year’s surge of federal officers to Minnesota, Trump previously linked his administration’s immigration crackdown against the state’s large Somali community to a series of fraud cases involving government programs. Most of the defendants have roots in the east African country.
Since Pretti’s death, the president has continued that framing, but there have been no direct connections made.
On Saturday, Trump said in a social media post that there had been a coordinated “cover up” to distract from billions being stolen from the state. He accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of “inciting Insurrection.”
After the deadly shooting Saturday, both Walz and Frey pointed to the thousands of Minnesotans who peacefully protested the day prior.
But Trump officials say Walz and Frey both repeatedly used inflammatory language, including Walz last year referring to federal immigration officers as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.”
On Saturday, Walz said he knew the potential to “further inflame” tensions was high but he suggested Minnesotans are keeping the peace.
“We want calm and peace and normalcy back to our lives. They want chaos,” Walz said. “We cannot and we will not give them what they want by meeting violence with violence. Minnesota and our local law enforcement, as you have seen, have done everything possible to deescalate.”
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP
