Pair testify that Pretti did not hold weapon and was trying to help woman federal agents had shoved to the ground

Image of person at memorial
A picture of Alex Pretti at a memorial in Minneapolis. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

Two witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti have said in sworn testimony that the 37-year-old intensive care nurse was not brandishing a weapon when he approached federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday, contradicting a claim made by Trump administration officials as they sought to cast the shooting of a prone man as an act of self-defense.

 

Their accounts came in sworn affidavits that were filed in federal court in Minnesota late Saturday, just hours after Pretti’s killing, as part of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of Minneapolis protesters against Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials directing the immigration crackdown in the city.

One witness is a woman who filmed the clearest video of the fatal shooting; the other is a physician who lives nearby and said they were initially prevented by federal officers from rendering medical aid to the gunshot victim.

The names of both witnesses were redacted in the publicly available filings.

In her testimony, the woman who filmed the shooting from just behind Pretti wearing a pink coat identified herself as “a children’s entertainer who specializes in face painting”. She testified that she came to the scene on her way to work because “I’ve been involved in observing in my community, because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors”.

She described the harrowing scene of Pretti being tackled by federal officers after coming to the aid of another observer the agents had shoved to the ground. One federal agent then sprayed a chemical agent in the faces of Pretti and the woman he had tried to help.

The woman testified that she saw no sign of Pretti holding a gun at any point.

She said: “The agents pulled the man on the ground. 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 … I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him …”

She continued: “I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. 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.

“I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me, and I don’t feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don’t know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they’re not telling the truth about what happened.”

The second witness, a 29-year-old physician, said in their testimony that they saw the shooting from their apartment window near the scene. Before the shooting, the witness said, they could see Pretti yelling at agents, but “did not see him attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind”.

After the shooting, when the physician attempted to render medical aid, they were initially prevented from doing so. “At first the ICE agents wouldn’t let me through,” they said. “But none of the ICE agents who were near the victim were performing CPR, and I could tell that the victim was in critical condition. I insisted that the ICE agents let me assess him.”

When the physician finally convinced the agents to let them through, they said they were confused as to why the victim was on his side, but instead of checking his pulse or performing CPR the officers “appeared to be counting his bullet wounds”.

The victim had “at least three bullet wounds in his back”, the doctor said, in addition to one on his upper left chest and another possible gunshot wound in his neck.

“I checked for a pulse, but I did not feel one,” the doctor said.

The witness testimony, combined with video evidence reviewed by the Guardian, directly contradicts claims by senior Trump administration officials, including the president, the homeland security secretary and Greg Bovino, a border patrol commander, who called Pretti a “gunman” who approached federal officers “brandishing” a gun and threatened to “massacre” them.