United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22601

On January 24, federal agents killed ICU nurse and community activist Alex Pretti in cold blood, after he tried to protect one of his neighbors. The Trump administration wasted no time putting forward a false narrative which completely distorted the events to justify Pretti’s murder. Pretti’s parents have released a statement to share the truth about their son, which we republish below.

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We are heartbroken but also very angry.

Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in the world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.

I do not throw around the “hero” term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had 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. Thank you.

The post “Please get the truth out about our son”: Statement from Parents of Alex Pretti appeared first on Left Voice.

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Sat 24 Jan 2026 21.32 EST

Large protests spread across US cities on Saturday – including Minneapolis, New York City, San Francisco, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island – after 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a registered nurse living in Minneapolis, was shot dead by federal agents.

The wave of demonstrations come just one day after thousands marched through the streets of Minneapolis to protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Protesters again braved the extreme cold to speak out against the agency and show support for Pretti and others who have been harmed by the surge of immigration agents who have flooded the city in recent week.

Thousands more rallied in Union Square in New York City, with footage showing demonstrators shouting: “Say it once, say it twice, we will not put up with ICE!”

Videos analyzed by The New York Times appear to contradict federal accounts of the shooting. The man, an I.C.U. nurse, was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said.

Jan. 24, 2026

https://archive.ph/mRKaR

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said it had joined Minnesota state officials in filing a federal lawsuit on Saturday night “seeking to prevent the destruction of evidence related to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.” The text of the lawsuit was not immediately available.

John Mitnick, who once was the head attorney at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, criticized his former agency on Saturday night. “I am enraged and embarrassed by DHS’s lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty,” he wrote on social media.

Key Senate Democrats said they would oppose legislation needed to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the week after federal agents shot and killed a Minneapolis resident.

MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the city is asking a federal judge to immediately grant a temporary restraining order to help halt the federal government's current immigration operation on Monday. The request came after federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old man Saturday in south Minneapolis.

-- article continues

The Kare11 ICE in Minnesota Page has a collection of recent stories. https://www.kare11.com/section/ice-in-minnesota

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/54036046

The University of Minnesota can no longer work with a group that helped Black and Latino students pursue business degrees — or other similar organizations — after the U.S. Education Department said the partnership constituted discrimination against white and Asian students.

The U participated in a “blatantly discriminatory program designed to benefit certain favored students based on their race or national origin to the clear detriment of other students who did not have access to the program,” a September letter from the Department of Education said.

Federal authorities said the slain man, Alex Pretti, had approached agents with a gun. But videos show Mr. Pretti was holding his phone, not a weapon, when they pulled him to the ground.

In particular, he never drew his gun, and ICE took his gun away before executing him.

Bellingcat reached the same conclusion

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/40296130

Archive link

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/54036873

**This is from a different angle than the original. The link in the article is to an X post. I am also including a link from a separate source.

A new video published on social media contradicts the Department of Homeland Security’s account of why federal agents killed 37-year-old Minneapolis man Alex Pretti in broad daylight on Saturday.

The graphic video, which was uploaded by Drop Site News, shows Pretti appearing to direct traffic and film federal agents on his phone. Soon after, he appears to be pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by multiple agents. About a half-dozen agents are on top of Pretti or in his immediate vicinity when he is initially shot. The gunshots continue after Pretti is on the ground.

The video, along with others recorded from different angles, refute the more than 150-word account of the shooting that DHS published on social media on Saturday afternoon. In that statement, DHS claimed that “an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.”

DHS has tried to back that up by saying Pretti had a handgun on him at the time, sharing a photo of it in the same social media post. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said on Saturday that Pretti appeared to be a licensed gun owner. But the video published by Drop Site makes clear that he was not holding a weapon in the lead-up to the shooting, or when federal agents forcefully took him to the ground. Instead, he only appears to be holding his phone to record the situation.

Video clipped from ongoing Status Coup live stream

Gift link, with URL shortener so that Lemmy doesn't remove the gift token

Additional reporting from Bring Me The News. They have removed the following text from their coverage:

Federal agents briefly detained our reporter at the scene, who says he was tackled to the ground and had a gun put in his face.

New York Times

Jan. 24, 2026
https://archive.ph/2BPoA

Federal immigration agents have broken windows and dragged occupants out of their vehicles. They have forcefully tackled people to the ground. They have pushed and shoved protesters, and deployed pepper spray directly in their faces.

For weeks, residents have documented the scenes unfolding as federal agents pursue President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. The videos have circulated widely and intensified outrage and fear among many Minnesotans.

Marty Kurcias, 76, who was protesting at the airport on Friday, said the aggressive treatment he has seen of Minnesotans was jarring. “It can’t go on like this,” he said, adding, “We don’t abide by cruelty or violence.”

Images of a man getting pepper-sprayed at close range while being held down by Border Patrol agents fueled more tension in Minneapolis.

Jan. 23, 2026

https://archive.ph/Q4D25

There was the American citizen dragged out of his home in subzero weather in his underwear. And the detention of a 5-year-old boy wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a hat with floppy ears drew outrage from school officials.

But photos of a Border Patrol agent squirting pepper spray in the face of a man who was being pinned down by fellow officers on Wednesday searingly captured why the ongoing immigration operation has been met with furious resistance on the streets of Minneapolis.

“No one looking at this image can seriously claim this is about public safety,” said Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis. “It should alarm every American because if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.”

When federal immigration agents pounded on the door of his Minneapolis home, the oldest son in a family of 10 knew he had to move his siblings to a safer place.

Their mother, a 41-year-old Indigenous Ecuadorian office cleaner without a known criminal record besides minor traffic offenses, had been detained in early January because she entered the country illegally. Her eldest children feared they would be next, leaving behind their 5-month-old brother and six other children under 16 years old.

“The immigration agents were knocking on our door very late at night, and that’s when I became afraid,” said the 20-year-old son, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear additional family members could face deportation. “I’m afraid that I’ll be taken and my brothers and sisters will be in the hands of the government.”