The killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an ICU nurse, is Minneapolis' city's second fatal shooting by a federal officer this month — and has set off another wave of outrage.
People pay their respects during a candlelight vigil for Alex Pretti after he was shot and killed by a federal agent on Saturday in Minneapolis. Brandon Bell / Getty Images
Wearing a respirator, Savannah Thissen, 26, said she was out protesting tonight because, like Pretti, she is a healthcare worker.
“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.”
Protester Savannah Thissen in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. Matt Lavietes
“I have to be here,” she added. “I don’t know how I could be at home.”
Thissen said that while there is a “sense of despair is creeping in” the city following its third officer-involved shooting this month, “it’s important that we don’t feed that doom.”
“They’re going to kill some of us. But if we don’t risk our safety now and here, they will just keep killing us,” she said. “If we don’t stand here now, despite the back to back murders and more, they will keep taking.”
In the state of Minnesota’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over Operation Metro Surge, Minnesota Solicitor General Liz Kramer and Minneapolis officials have sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez pleading with her to take action and provide the state with what they call the “urgent” emergency relief it needs.
“Plaintiffs, and Plaintiffs’ communities, are in urgent need of a Court-ordered respite to the irreparable injuries Defendants continue to cause to the health, safety, education, and welfare of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and indeed the entire State of Minnesota,” Kramer and her colleagues write. “This cannot continue. We need the Court to act to stop this Surge before yet another resident dies because of Operation Metro Surge.”
They’re asking Menendez to “put the parties back in their positions before the Surge began and to immediately prevent even further irreparable harms to Plaintiffs’ ability to protect the public health, welfare, safety, and education. This will allow the Court—with the status quo duly preserved—to then examine the facts and the law in due course to consider more durable relief.”
“The record before the Court is more than sufficient to justify this immediate relief: Plaintiffs have demonstrated ongoing, irreparable harm and established serious constitutional claims,” the letter says. “Every day that passes without Court intervention compounds these injuries and undermines the very rights this Court is charged to protect.”
A hearing on Minnesota’s initial motion for relief was scheduled for Monday, well before today’s events transpired. That hearing is still on.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., posted on social media this evening that the “credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake” after the shooting in Minneapolis today.
He called for a “full joint federal and state investigation,” adding, “We can trust the American people with the truth.”
Cassidy faces a primary challenge in his Louisiana Senate race from Rep. Julia Letlow, who has Trump’s endorsement.
A federal judge in Minnesota early this morning blocked the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to today’s fatal shooting of Pretti.
The ruling comes after Minnesota state officials filed a lawsuit in Minnesota’s U.S. District Court against officials with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies seeking a temporary restraining order that would prohibit federal officials from destroying evidence.
The lawsuit alleges evidence was taken from the scene of the shooting.
Judge Eric Tostrud’s order includes any “evidence that Defendants and those working on their behalf removed from the scene and/or evidence that Defendants have taken into their exclusive custody,” it states.
The suit, filed by the state attorney general, includes the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as plaintiffs and names among its defendants the leadership of several federal agencies, including the DHS.
“Our office has jurisdiction to review this matter for potential criminal conduct by the federal agents involved and we will do so,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent late last night.
A hearing is scheduled on the matter for Monday in Minnesota federal court.
Pretti’s said they are “heartbroken but also very angry” about the death of their son in Minneapolis yesterday.
“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,” Michael and Susan Pretti said in a statement released through the Minnesota DFL. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.”
They rejected an account of the shooting provided by the Department of Homeland Security, which has said a Border Patrol officer fired in self-defense after Pretti violently resisted their efforts to disarm him.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs,” they said. “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,” they said. “He was a good man.”
Eyewitness videos showing at least one federal agent shooting and killing Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis appear to counter the Trump administration’s description of events, presenting two starkly different narratives.
Shortly after the shooting, federal officials said agents had acted in self-defense during a violent altercation Saturday morning. Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9-millimeter semi-automatic handgun,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said, adding officers “attempted to disarm” him and he “violently resisted.” President Donald Trump shared a picture of what he said was “the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Pretti “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.”
But at least four different videos of the encounter — filmed by eyewitnesses and verified and analyzed by NBC News — run counter to some of the administration’s statements. The videos do not appear to show Pretti holding a weapon during the skirmish that led to his death. The footage shows him coming to the aid of a person federal agents pushed before the encounter.
Read the full story here.
NBC News