A Sense of Doubt blog post #3998 - MURDER - Call it what it is - Veteran ICU RN Alex Pretti MURDERED by ICE Agent in Minneapolis
We need to call it what it is.
Wael Tarabishi was murdered when ICE arrested his father, Wael's sole care giver, and then refused to let him (father Maher Tarabishi) attend his son's funeral.
The actions of the Trump administration and its ICE gestapo are cruel and unhuman. They literally dehumanize people constantly with their racist and hateful language.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/24/us/minneapolis-shooting-alex-pretti-timeline.html
Timeline: A Moment-by-Moment Look at the Shooting of Alex Pretti
Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, at about 9 a.m. Central time on Saturday morning. A video shared with The New York Times by a witness and her lawyer, as well as other video footage posted on social media, documents the violent scene, where agents appear to fire at least 10 shots in a span of five seconds.
The footage seems to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the encounter, which the agency said began after an individual armed with a handgun approached the federal agents with the intent to “massacre” them.
48 seconds before shooting
Mr. Pretti filming the scene
Immigration agent
Civilian with orange backpack
Civilian in brown coat
Videos show a small group of civilians standing in the middle of a street where a person was detained on the ground; the civilians are speaking to federal agents. Mr. Pretti appears to be filming the scene, and he walks closer to the federal agents while holding his phone.
Then an agent shoves two civilians from one side of the street to the other, pushing them toward a white S.U.V.
28 seconds before
Mr. Pretti
Agent pushing civilian to the ground
Civilian with orange backpack
Civilian in brown coat
White S.U.V.
For a second time, the agent pushes the civilian with the orange backpack. The civilian falls to the ground near the white S.U.V.
25 seconds before
Mr. Pretti holding a phone
Agent pepper-sprays the group
Civilian with orange backpack
Civilian in brown coat
Mr. Pretti tries to put himself between the D.H.S. agent and the two civilians. Footage shows the same agent squirting pepper spray in the direction of Mr. Pretti’s face. (This agent will later fire shots at Mr. Pretti.)
Mr. Pretti is holding his phone in one hand, and he holds his other hand up to shield himself from the spray.
23 seconds before
Mr. Pretti
Agent
Civilian with orange backpack
Civilian in brown coat
Mr. Pretti appears to be trying to help the civilian with the orange backpack stand back up as the agent continues to pepper-spray the group.
17 seconds before
1
Mr. Pretti holding his phone
Several agents grab Mr. Pretti, who is still holding his phone. Additional agents approach and try to pin Mr. Pretti to the ground.
11 seconds before
Mr. Pretti is restrained by multiple agents
Agent in gray coat
Mr. Pretti is surrounded by a group of seven agents, some of whom have wrestled him to the ground. One of the agents, who wears a gray coat, gets closer to Mr. Pretti. The agent’s hands are empty as he reaches for Mr. Pretti, while the other agents hold Mr. Pretti down on his knees. At the same time, another agent strikes Mr. Pretti repeatedly with a pepper spray canister.
1 second before
Agent in gray coat appears to remove a gun
Agent unholsters his weapon
Civilian in brown coat
Civilian with orange backpack
An eighth agent joins the group. The agent in the gray coat appears to pull a gun from near Mr. Pretti’s right hip. The agent then begins to move away from the skirmish with the weapon.
At the same time, another agent unholsters his firearm and points it at Mr. Pretti’s back.
First shot fired
Agent in gray coat removes gun from skirmish
The agent in the gray coat removes the weapon from the scene. It matches the profile of a gun that D.H.S. says belonged to Mr. Pretti. Then, while Mr. Pretti is on his knees and restrained, the agent standing directly above him appears to fire one shot at Mr. Pretti at close range. He immediately fires three additional shots.
The diagram below shows the position of the agents, Mr. Pretti and other civilians at this moment.
Additional shots fired
Mr. Pretti lying on the ground
Two agents who fired shots
Several agents have moved away from Mr. Pretti, who has collapsed. Another agent — the same one who shoved the civilians into the street and pepper-sprayed Mr. Pretti — unholsters his gun and fires at Mr. Pretti. The first agent also fires additional shots. Together, they fire six more shots at Mr. Pretti while he lies motionless on the ground.
At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. By the moment of the 10th shot, the agent who moved away with the weapon has crossed the street.
Mr. Pretti is the second person to be shot and killed by a federal agent in Minnesota in recent weeks. Footage of Mr. Pretti’s death in Minneapolis was posted on social media almost immediately after the shooting.
The Homeland Security Department said that the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun, and that an agent fired “defensive shots.” Another encounter in Minneapolis this month, in which a Venezuelan man was shot in the leg by a federal agent, was also characterized as “defensive” by the department.
Gov. Tim Walz, Democrat of Minnesota, disputed the claims by federal officials that Mr. Pretti had posed a threat. He accused “the most powerful people in the federal government” of “spinning stories and putting up pictures.”
Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis Police Department said that Mr. Pretti was an American citizen with no criminal record and that he had a valid firearms permit. Under Minnesota law, citizens can legally carry a handgun in public, either openly or concealed, if they have a permit.
As with the fatal shooting of Renee Good, local and state authorities in Minnesota say that they have been impeded by D.H.S. from investigating the killing of Mr. Pretti, and that they have been cut off from access to crucial evidence and facts.
Large crowds of protesters gathered throughout Saturday at the site of Mr. Pretti’s shooting. On Sunday afternoon, around 1,000 people packed Government Plaza in downtown Minneapolis to protest the presence of federal agents in the city and to call for justice for Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti.
MORE COVERAGE
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000010668660/new-video-analysis-reveals-flawed-and-fatal-decisions-in-shooting-of-pretti.html
New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti
A frame-by-frame assessment of actions by Alex Pretti and the two officers who fired 10 times shows how lethal force came to be used against a target who didn’t pose a threat.
When federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, officials said he approached agents with a handgun, intending to massacre them. “An individual approached U.S. Border Patrol agents with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun.” “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.” But a Times analysis of video footage from the scene in the moments when two officers opened fire, clearly contradict federal government statements. Pretti does not appear to pose a threat to agents. In fact, at several critical junctures, he is outnumbered and under their control. Here are the key moments that reveal what happened. We see Pretti walking about, filming a group of protesters who are speaking with a federal agent. He’s holding a cell phone in one hand. The other hand is empty. It’s just over 30 seconds before the shooting when a protester is pushed to the ground. Pretti steps between her and the agent who’d shoved her, briefly putting his hand on the agent’s waist. The agent pepper-sprays Pretti’s face. We can see Pretti is still holding his phone in one hand while holding his other hand up to protect himself against the spray. Contrary to statements by federal officials, he’s made no threatening movements towards agents. Pretti, who had a firearms permit, carries a gun holstered on his right hip, but he doesn’t reach for it. And it appears agents are unaware the gun is even there. He reaches toward the protester, apparently trying to help her up, while agents begin grabbing him from behind. He tries to pull away, and again he makes no threatening movements towards the agents. But agents pull him backwards and force him to the ground. Then shots ring out. [gunfire] Now we’ll slow things down, so each moment is clear. Here is Pretti. Several agents are restraining him. And this is the Border Patrol agent who will shoot him first. This appears to be when agents first notice that Pretti is carrying a firearm and yell that he has a gun. Watching the same moment from a different angle, the agent who first pepper-sprayed Pretti beats him several times with the spray canister. We can see that both of Pretti’s arms are pinned down by his head. This agent in gray reaches to remove Pretti’s weapon from his hip, as this agent unholsters his gun, nudges the agent in gray out of the way and fires. [gunfire] Let’s rewind and focus on the agent who shoots first. Just seconds before he fired, he was facing away from Pretti and focusing on an entirely different situation as he tries to spray a nearby woman with an irritant. The spray appears to malfunction, and the agent turns as he adjusts it. That’s when someone yells that Pretti has a gun. And around five seconds after fully turning his attention toward Pretti, the agent draws his weapon and shoots. [gunfire] His arm visibly recoils at the first shot. The firearm has clearly been removed from the scrum when the first shots are fired toward Pretti at close range. [gunfire] The officer who disarmed Pretti can be seen reacting to the sound of the first shot, looking back toward the skirmish. The shooter was standing behind Pretti and not under direct threat, contradicting statements from Homeland Security officials that he fired defensive shots. He also has a vantage point to see the gun pulled from the scene, but it’s unclear if he did and whether he thought a weapon was still on Pretti. He then fires three more shots from behind Pretti, whose arms are down as he appears to brace himself against the pavement. In one hand, he still holds his phone, and in his other, his glasses. The agent in gray, who removed Pretti’s gun, carries it across the street. Pretti is disarmed and falling to the ground. But the agent who first pepper-sprayed Pretti and later beat him with a canister, also pulls out his gun. From a distance, despite the fact that Pretti is lying motionless on the ground, these two agents fire six more shots. Neither is under threat. [screaming] [gunfire, screaming] In total, the agents fire 10 shots in five seconds. After the shooting, an agent kneeling next to Pretti’s body asks where the gun is — — showing that not all of the officers seem to know the weapon had been removed. Agents appear to begin giving medical aid. About 31 seconds elapsed from the time agents first physically engaged Pretti to the moment the last shot was fired.
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- Days ago: MOM = 3861 days ago & DAD = 516 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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