Trump shared a social media post labeling Pretti a “domestic terrorist” over the video, but Pretti’s family said officers assaulted him.
The family of Alex Pretti denounced fresh attacks Thursday on the intensive care nurse shot by Department of Homeland Security officers after new video emerged of an earlier clash between Pretti and federal immigration enforcement.
Conservatives leaped on the video of the Jan. 13 confrontation as evidence that Pretti was not a peaceful observer, as multiple videos of his killing on Jan. 24 suggest.
“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,” Steve Schleicher, an attorney for the family, said Thursday morning. “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”
The earlier video, published by digital news outlet The News Movement, shows Pretti yelling at officers in a vehicle and spitting in their direction. As the vehicle pulls forward, he kicks out the right taillight. Officers then exit the car and grab him, shoving him onto the ground as other officers fire tear gas and pepper balls into a crowd nearby.
The outlet worked with BBC Verify, which used facial recognition software to identify the man as Pretti.
It’s unclear what happened in the lead-up to the encounter. Two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to MS NOW that the video is being reviewed by investigators.
The video also appears to show Pretti with a pistol in his waistband, though he makes no attempt to use it and it’s unclear whether officers realized he was armed.
President Donald Trump referred to the video twice on Truth Social late Wednesday, including one post highlighting a social media statement labeling Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”
He posted the video again Thursday, overlaying the footage with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., reading a viral Facebook post from Pretti’s nursing student that says he was “incapable of causing harm,” in what appeared to be an attempt to contrast Pretti’s actions with that sentiment.
The fact that Pretti was legally carrying a firearm when he was killed immediately became a flashpoint as the Trump administration struggled to find a cohesive response to Pretti’s death, the second fatal shooting of a Minneapolis resident by immigration officers in three weeks. In the hours after Pretti’s shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller blamed Pretti for his own death and falsely accused him of setting out to “assassinate” federal officers.
Trump made moves toward decreasing tensions, including replacing Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino in the state with his border czar Tom Homan. Homan said Thursday that his focus is a “draw down” on DHS officers in Minnesota.
But the president’s minor concessions to state leaders appeared to crumble as he threatened Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday for saying that city officials do not enforce federal law.
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Gov. Tim Walz also told MS NOW that Trump, in a phone call on Monday, seemed to compare the federal immigration operation in Minnesota to the U.S. strike on Venezuela in which President Nicolás Maduro was captured.
“He saw an operation in Venezuela, against a foreign nation, in the same context he saw an operation against a U.S. state and a U.S. city,” Walz told MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff about the call.
A White House official told MS NOW that Trump was not making any such comparison and that he brought up Venezuela as a separate topic.
Pretti’s death has become a political nightmare for the Trump administration, which for months has waged an aggressive immigration crackdown in Democratic-led cities. Federal law enforcement activity in Minnesota has been particularly combative, especially after the killing of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7. Federal judges in Minnesota have also ruled against the Justice Department in almost every case challenging immigrants’ detention, with one chief judge excoriating ICE for its “extraordinary” violation of court orders.
Residents in Maine, the administration’s latest target, had been steeling themselves for similarly contentious immigration enforcement. But with the White House scrambling over its operation in Minnesota, Sen. Susan Collins said Thursday morning that Noem had assured her that ICE’s “enhanced activities” in Maine have ended.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
