The United States federal government killed one of its own employees for the crime of protecting a stranger.
By Ryan Miner | A Miner Detail | January 25, 2026
On Saturday morning, January 24, 2026, Alex Jeffrey Pretti woke up in his south Minneapolis condominium for the last time.
His Catahoula Leopard dog, Joule, had recently died – the kind of animal loss that hollows you out, that leaves a silence in the house where padding footsteps used to be.
Alex was 37 years old.
He was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He spent his days keeping dying American military veterans alive.
By 9:05 a.m., agents of the United States Border Patrol had shot him to death in the street.
Within hours, Stephen Miller – the man who has shaped America’s immigration policy for nearly a decade – called Alex Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.”
Let us be clear about what actually happened, because the videos exist, and Reuters, the New York Times, NBC News, CBS News, and the eyes of every American who has watched them have verified the footage.
Alex Pretti was standing on Nicollet Avenue, holding his cell phone, legally recording federal agents conducting an immigration operation.
He was directing traffic and doing what Americans have done since the invention of the camera: documenting the actions of his American government.
A federal agent shoved a woman to the ground. Alex moved between the agent and the woman and raised his empty left hand to shield himself as the agent pepper-sprayed him.
And it was Alex who tried to help the women get up from the ground.
For this, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) murdered Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37.
The Man ICE Murdered
Alex Pretti was born in Illinois and grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He played football and baseball and ran track at Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout. He sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.
He was, by every account, the kind of guy who shows up early and leaves late, who does the unglamorous work without complaint.
He went to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a degree in biology, society, and the environment. He worked as a research scientist before returning to school to become a nurse.
At the VA, he worked on research to prevent veterans from dying of colon cancer. Then he moved to the ICU, “to support critically ill veterans,” according to his colleague Dr. Dimitri Drekonja.
“Your day just gets better when Alex is around,” said Robert Alver, who worked with Pretti in a university lab seventeen years ago. “He would come into the lab with a big smile on his face… It’s something very striking, especially for a college kid who doesn’t have two beans to rub together.”
Mac Randolph posted a video to Facebook of his father, Terry Randolph’s, last moments on earth.
Alex Pretti was there, in December 2024, administering morphine and pain relief to a dying Air Force veteran.
“Alex was there the final night,” Mac wrote.
This is who Alex Pretti was: a man who held the hands of dying veterans in their final hours.
A federal employee.
A man paid by the same government that would, weeks later, execute him in broad daylight and then call him a “domestic terrorist.”
What the Videos Show
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says Alex Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.”
Secretary Kristi Noem said he was there to “inflict maximum damage” and “massacre law enforcement.”
Commander Gregory Bovino said Pretti wanted to do “maximum damage.”
The videos show something else entirely.
They show Alex Pretti holding a phone in his right hand. His left hand is empty, raised above his head.
A federal agent shoves a woman. Alex moves to help her. The agent pepper-sprays him. Multiple agents tackle him to the ground.
What happens next is captured on video from multiple angles and verified by every major news organization in America.
An agent in a gray jacket reaches into the scrum of bodies, pinning Alex to the ground.
He comes away holding a gun.
The firearm has been removed from Alex Pretti’s person – taken from near his waistband, according to Washington Post analysis.
Alex Pretti owned this gun legally. He had a valid Minnesota permit to carry. He had never drawn it.
Then, with Alex pinned face-down by multiple agents, with the gun already removed, an agent standing over him draws his service weapon, points it at Alex Pretti’s back, and fires.
Four shots; more federal ICE agents fire their weapons. The New York Times counted at least ten shots in five seconds.
Witnesses hear Alex Pretti screaming: ‘You’re gonna kill me. That’s what you want?”
And that’s what happened: ICE murdered Alex Pretti.
The Lie That Follows the Body
The Trump administration’s response was immediate, coordinated, and disgustingly false.
Before Alex Pretti’s body had grown cold, before any investigation had begun, before his parents in Colorado even knew their son was dead, the machinery of official narrative was already at work.
“Domestic terrorist.”
“Would-be assassin.”
“There to inflict maximum damage.”
These lies traveled the world while the truth was still pulling on its boots.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – born in Minneapolis, a man who should understand what it means when federal agents kill unarmed citizens in the streets of his hometown – published to X: “Thank God for the patriots of @ICEgov – we have your back 100%. You are SAVING the country.”
Hegseth added: “Shame on the leadership of Minnesota – and the lunatics in the street.”
The lunatic in the street was an ICU nurse who spent his days keeping veterans alive. Mr. Pretti was a federal employee. He was exercising his First Amendment right to record law enforcement and his Second Amendment right to legally and responsibly carry a firearm.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara stated what the videos make obvious: “This is an individual that was a city resident. It appears that he was present exercising his First Amendment rights to record law enforcement activity and also exercising his Second Amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city.”
Alex Pretti’s parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, were first notified of the shooting by an Associated Press reporter seeking comment. They subsequently identified their son by watching bystander video footage before receiving official confirmation from the Medical Examiner.
Alex’s mom and dad – Michael and Susan – watched the video of their federal government murdering their son and recognized their son.
I have a 22-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter, both of whom are American college students. The fear, the pain, all of it. All of it hits in the worst way possible.
Alex’s parents called the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, who confirmed what they already knew.
“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti said on Saturday.
As of Saturday evening, no federal law enforcement agency had contacted Alex Pretti’s parents to inform them their son was dead.
The Context We Cannot Ignore
Alex Pretti is the second American citizen killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in seventeen days.
On January 7th, Renee Good – a 37-year-old mother of three – was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross when he fired into her vehicle.
On January 14th, federal immigration agents shot a Venezuelan man in the leg.
On January 24th, ICE killed Alex Pretti.
The Minneapolis Police Department recovered approximately 900 guns from the streets in 2024 and arrested hundreds of violent offenders. However, officers were involved in multiple shootings, including the fatal shootings of Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed and Michael Ristow.
ICE has killed two American citizens in three weeks.
This is Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in American history. Three thousand federal agents descended on Minneapolis – a city of 430,000 people – to conduct what the Department of Homeland Security calls immigration enforcement.
Let us be precise about what this operation has produced:
Terror.
Schools have shifted to remote learning because parents are afraid to send their children outside.
Small businesses – already survivors of the COVID pandemic – are watching their customers disappear because people are afraid to leave their homes.
ICE agents are stopping people on the street based on the color of their skin, demanding papers from off-duty police officers, from American citizens, from anyone who looks like they might not belong in the America these agents are building.
Chaos.
The day before federal agents killed Alex Pretti, 50,000 Minnesotans marched in subzero temperatures – with windchills near sixty degrees below zero – to demand that those agents leave their city
Seven hundred businesses closed in the city.
Police arrested clergy members at the airport.
And now it has produced bodies.
American bodies.
The bodies of American citizens killed by their own government for the crime of being in the wrong place, or helping the wrong person, or simply existing in a city under occupation.
The Moment Alex Pretti Became a Hero
As of Saturday evening, January 24, two witnesses filed statements in federal court: the woman who filmed the incident (stating Pretti was unarmed and ‘only helping’) and a pediatrician who witnessed the aftermath and testified that agents failed to render aid while ‘counting bullet wounds.
The first witness’s name has been redacted for their protection – because in the America of January 2026, witnessing the actions of federal agents makes you a target.
The witness describes what they saw: “The man with the phone put his hands above his head, and the agent resprayed him and pushed him.”
“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.”
A second witness, a physician, testified that agents prevented him from rendering medical aid to the dying nurse.
Alex Pretti’s last act on this earth was to try to help a stranger.
A woman was shoved to the ground by a federal agent. Alex stepped between them and raised his hand to protect a total stranger from pepper spray. He was helping; he was one of the helpers that Mr. Rogers often referred to to soothe children when words alone couldn’t explain away human behavior.
Alex’s parents’ statement says, “I do not throw around the term hero lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman.”
They continue: “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper-sprayed.”
“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.”
To Michael and Susan: We will.
The Second Amendment, Selectively Applied
Here is an irony that should trouble every American who claims to care about the Constitution:
Alex Pretti was a legal gun owner. He had a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota law permits open carry with a valid permit. Alex Pretti violated no law.
The same administration that claims to defend Second Amendment rights executed a man for exercising them.
Let us imagine, for a moment, that Alex Pretti had been at a different kind of protest.
Let us imagine he had been at an anti-lockdown rally in 2020, or at the January 6th gathering before it turned violent, or at any gathering of citizens the current administration finds politically congenial.
Would Stephen Miller have called him a domestic terrorist?
Would Kristi Noem have said he was there to “massacre law enforcement”?
Would Pete Hegseth have thanked God for the agents who killed him?
The Second Amendment, it seems, applies only to certain Americans. The right to record police officers – established by decades of case law – applies only to certain Americans.
he right to help a stranger whom agents are assaulting apparently applies only to certain Americans
Alex Pretti was the wrong kind of American, according to the Trump administration.
He cared about immigrants.
He cared about and for dying American military veterans at a Minnesota VA hospital.
He cared about the people being “grabbed off the street,” as his father put it.
And he peacefully protested against his American government at the hands of tyranny.
For this, our American government murdered an innocent 37-year-old former Boy Scout ICU nurse who showed up with his camera to document injustice in real time.
What Alex Pretti’s Country Owed Him
Alex Pretti worked for the United States government; he was a federal employee.
Every day, Alex Pretti went to the Minneapolis VA Medical Center and cared for the men and women who had served their country – folks just like my grandfathers.
Alex was paid with taxpayer dollars to keep veterans alive in their worst moments.
Dr. Drekonja, his colleague, said what needs to be said: “There is no reason for a guy like that to be dead, let alone to be killed by the agents of a government that employed him.”
Let that sink in.
The same government that wrote Alex Pretti’s paychecks sent agents to his city.
Those ICE agents killed him.
Then his government called him a “domestic terrorist” for doing the most American thing he could do at a time when Americans stood up and supported one another.
Alex Pretti gave his professional life to serving veterans – people who risked their lives for their country.
He spent his last moments trying to help a woman who had been knocked to the ground by federal agents.
Alex Pretti’s country repaid him with bullets.
His mother, Susan, told reporters that Alex cared deeply about the environment.
“He hated that, you know, people were just trashing the land. He was an outdoorsman. He took his dog everywhere he went. You know, he loved this country, but he hated what people were doing to it.”
It’s evident to me that Alex Pretti loved America.
He loved it enough to protest when he thought it was going wrong, and he loved it enough to show up, in the bitter cold, in his community, to document what his government was doing.
He loved America enough to step between a federal agent and a stranger.
And America repaid him with disgusting lies – told over his corpse.
The America That Killed Alex Pretti
Two weeks before he died, Alex Pretti talked to his parents about the protests.
They worried about their son.
“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said.
“And he said he knows that. He knew that.”
Alex knew that.
And our American government murdered him.
This is the America we are building – an America where knowing the rules does not save you.
It’s an America where having a legal firearm makes you a “domestic terrorist” if you’re at the wrong protest.
It’s an America where helping a stranger gets you executed.
And it’s an America where federal agents can kill you in the street and then, before your family knows you’re dead, call you a domestic terrorist on national television.
One thousand people gathered at Whittier Park on Saturday night, in subzero cold, to mourn Alex Pretti. They laid flowers and candles in the snow. They built a memorial at the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue, less than two miles from where Renee Good’s memorial still stands.
“You are loved and missed, Alex Pretti,” one sign reads. “You have saved so many lives, and you inspire so many others.”
A healthcare worker named Savannah Thissen, 26, came to the vigil wearing a respirator.
“In my industry of love and service, 90% of my co-workers and friends and family are immigrants, many of whom are nurses,” she said. “And today they have proven that they’re willing to execute health care workers, immigrants, and innocent citizens all.”
“I have to be here,” she added. “I don’t know how I could be at home.”
Thissen said that while despair is creeping in, “it’s important that we don’t feed that doom.”
“They’re going to kill some of us,” she said. “But if we don’t risk our safety now and here, they will just keep killing us.”
An Accounting
Alex Jeffrey Pretti was born in Illinois.
He grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
He went to the University of Minnesota. He became a scientist, then a nurse.
He cared for dying veterans. He loved the outdoors. He loved his dog. He believed in America enough to protest when he thought it was going wrong.
On January 24, 2026, United States federal agents shot him to death in the street as he held a phone in one hand and nothing in the other, attempting to help a woman an agent had shoved to the ground.
His government called him a terrorist.
His neighbors called him gentle.
His colleagues called him kind.
His patients’ families called him a hero.
The videos show the truth. The videos show a man being pepper-sprayed, tackled, pinned to the ground, disarmed, and then shot repeatedly in the back while he lay face-down under the weight of multiple federal agents.
This is what happened.
This is who did it.
This is the America being built, one body at a time, in the streets of Minneapolis.
Alex Pretti deserved better.
America deserves better.
But Alex Pretti is dead – and the men who killed him are being called patriots.
And Stephen Miller is still in the White House, and Kristi Noem is still running the Department of Homeland Security, and the occupation of Minneapolis continues.
So let us at least tell the truth about what happened.
Let us say his name and know who he was.
Let us remember that he spent his last moments doing what he had spent his whole life doing: helping people.
Let us not let them bury him under their lies.
Alex Pretti was a good man.
He was an American citizen.
He was a federal employee.
He was a nurse who cared for veterans.
Alex Pretti was murdered by his own government while trying to help a stranger.
Please get the truth out about our son, his parents begged.
This is the truth; we’re going to tell Alex’s story early and often.
Ryan Miner is the founder and editor of A Miner Detail.
