Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who worked at a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in Minneapolis, was fatally shot by federal agents on Saturday, Jan. 24, during an immigration enforcement operation in the city. His employer’s union, AFGE Professional Local 3669, confirmed that Pretti was a member and called his death “devastating.”
According to NBC News, Pretti was shot just before 9 a.m. after a confrontation between agents and protesters opposed to the government’s immigration tactics. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said local officials believe Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry, and family members told the Associated Press that he owned a handgun and held a Minnesota concealed carry permit.
The Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol officers were conducting an operation when they were approached by Pretti and that an agent shot him in self-defense after he resisted efforts to disarm him. NBC News reported that videos taken from several angles appear to contradict parts of that account. In the footage, Pretti is seen checking on a protester who had been pushed by officers before he was dragged to the ground and surrounded, after which a series of gunshots can be heard.
Shifting official accounts
In the hours after the shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described the scene as “a violent riot” and officials characterized Pretti as a gunman who was “brandishing” a pistol. As Reason reported, the administration later retreated from the claim that Pretti intended to kill agents; footage showed that Pretti, who had a carry permit, never drew his pistol, and that the gun remained holstered until a Border Patrol agent removed it during the struggle. President Donald Trump, who initially amplified the account, later told The Wall Street Journal the shooting was “tragic” while continuing to fault Pretti for carrying a firearm.
Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan, rejected the federal account. In a statement released through the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, they said their son had a phone in one hand and his other hand raised above his head “while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper-sprayed.” They called the statements about their son “sickening and reprehensible.”
Agents identified, records withheld
ProPublica reported that government records identify the two agents who fired as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez, 35, both assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an enforcement effort launched in December that sent masked agents across the city. CBP has refused to release the agents’ names publicly. DHS acknowledged to some members of Congress that two agents fired Glock pistols and said the agents had been placed on leave, according to CBS News.
ProPublica reported that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division opened an investigation into the shooting, and that state investigators have accused federal counterparts of blocking their inquiry. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, accused the department of covering up evidence. Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah wrote that “those responsible, no matter their title, must be held accountable.” Gregory Bovino, who directed the Minneapolis crackdown, was removed as Border Patrol commander at large and reassigned to El Centro, California.
A second killing
Pretti’s death followed the fatal shooting weeks earlier of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Both killings occurred during what DHS described as one of its largest immigration enforcement operations, which sent about 2,000 agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area beginning in early January. PBS News reported that the two deaths intensified public anger over the tactics used by immigration agents in the state.
NBC News reported that DHS immigration enforcement officers shot 14 people between September 2025 and February 2026. Colleagues remembered Pretti as a longtime VA employee. Dr. Aasma Shaukat, who hired him in 2014, told NBC News that he “wanted to work in the health care field, with patients,” and that “he thought veterans were particularly vulnerable.”
COMMENTS