Videos show altercation between Alex Pretti and federal officers 11 days before he was killed
Three newly discovered videos show the Minneapolis ICU nurse being tackled by federal agents in a prior confrontation
Videos emerged on Wednesday of a previous confrontation between Alex Pretti and federal agents, 11 days before the ICU nurse was fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis.
About two minutes of video, published by the News Movement, a digital news outlet, shows an incident on 13 January in Minneapolis in which officers appeared to grab Pretti and bring him to the ground during intense community protests against the federal crackdown in the city.
It is unclear what preceded the events caught on camera, but the footage shows Pretti yelling at agents in an unmarked vehicle and then spitting at their vehicle and kicking the tail light out as it moves away. Soon after, a heavily armed agent in tactical gear is seen exiting the car and appears to tackle Pretti to the ground while other officers crowd around.
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Pretti appears to break free from the officers soon after, and then stands and remains on the scene as agents leave. After Pretti’s coat is pulled off by the officers, the News Movement video shows what appears to be a gun in his waistband. Pretti, whom state officials confirmed had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, never touched it during or after the altercation.
A family representative confirmed to the Guardian that it was Pretti in the newly uncovered footage.
Steve Schleicher, an attorney representing Pretti’s family, said in a statement: “A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents. Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing.”
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Second federal killing in Minneapolis: how the shooting of Alex Pretti unfolded – video analysis
A representative for the family also said they had been aware of the incident and that Pretti sustained injuries, but did not get medical care.
The Minnesota Star Tribune on Wednesday published a separate bystander video of the same incident, showing officers tackling Pretti. Max Shapiro, a witness who filmed the interaction, told the newspaper: “He got slammed to the ground pretty hard.” The footage ends with Shapiro approaching Pretti and asking if he is OK, with Pretti responding: “I’m OK. Are we all OK? Are we all safe?”
A third video of the incident, posted on YouTube the day it happened, gives a sense of the roiling anger over the immigration enforcement operation under way, with cars honking and people blowing whistles to alert their neighbors to the presence of federal agents.
Pretti and the other protesters confronted federal agents that day just four blocks away from where Renee Good had been killed by an ICE officer the week before.
After the News Movement video surfaced, rightwing commentators, including Donald Trump, claimed that it showed Pretti “spitting on” federal agents before he was tackled. However, the third witness video, recorded from the reverse angle, shows that Pretti spat on the vehicle the agents were inside.
All of the videos show that during the incident, agents fired teargas and pepper balls into the crowd as they continued to hold Pretti down. The chaotic footage shows other residents gathering and yelling at the officers in the aftermath.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email on Wednesday night that they were reviewing the footage.
It is not clear from the footage what exactly prompted Pretti’s apparent anger at agents.
A person holds a picture during a vigil for Alex Pretti on 28 January. Photograph: John Locher/AP
Sahan Journal, a local outlet that covers immigrant communities, reported from the area that day that a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered to observe and protest following reports of ICE’s presence in the neighborhood.
The outlet reported that one woman had been forcibly removed from her vehicle after officers smashed her window. Aisha Gomez, a state representative, was also at the scene and told the outlet that agents had tackled another man and pushed his head into the ground before carrying him away.
Gomez told the outlet officers had gotten physical with her, too, saying: “I was shoved with no verbal communication whatsoever.”
Jacob Frey, Minneapolis’s mayor, was asked about the footage at a CNN town hall and responded that he did not consider it relevant to Pretti’s killing 11 days later.
“I think we should be talking about the circumstances that actually led to the killing and what took place and those circumstances,” the mayor said.
Trump administration officials initially claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a gun on the day that he was killed and intended to “massacre” officers – claims that were contradicted by video that showed him holding a phone, not a gun.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” Pretti’s family said in a statement shortly after he was killed. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs … Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
Members of the American Federation of Government Employees honored Alex Pretti at a vigil outside a Veterans Administration hospital in Detroit on Sunday. Pretti, a registered nurse who worked at a VA hospital, was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
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