MINNEAPOLIS – Federal immigration officers shot and killed a 37-year-old man during a Saturday morning operation in south Minneapolis, igniting fresh street protests and a bitter jurisdictional fight between Minnesota officials and Washington. The man, identified by his family as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, died at the scene. (apnews.com)
Pretti’s killing – the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month – thrust the city back into the global spotlight nearly six years after the murder of George Floyd. Video from bystanders spread across social media within hours, while federal and local authorities offered starkly conflicting accounts of what precipitated the gunfire. The Minnesota National Guard deployed to support local police as crowds swelled through the afternoon and evening. (apnews.com)
Competing accounts, captured on camera
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said officers fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when agents tried to disarm him. She added that agents recovered a firearm with two magazines. By contrast, multiple bystander videos reviewed by journalists show Pretti holding a phone; none circulating publicly appears to show him brandishing a weapon. DHS later distributed a photo of a handgun it said was recovered at the scene. (apnews.com)
Local officials stressed that early narratives remain in dispute and that investigators have not yet publicly reconciled the differing accounts. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara urged residents to leave the area and avoid property damage. “Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city to do so with the same discipline, humanity and integrity that effective law enforcement in this country demands,” the chief said. “We urge everyone to remain peaceful. We recognise that there is a lot of anger and a lot of questions around what has happened, but we need people to remain peaceful in the area.” He added that, as far as his department knew, Pretti’s only prior interaction with law enforcement involved traffic tickets. “And we believe he is a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry,” he said. (fox9.com)
The officer who fired on Pretti is an eight‑year U.S. Border Patrol veteran, according to federal officials. Family members said Pretti was an ICU nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital and had joined protests after the January 7 killing of Minneapolis resident Renée Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. “He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” his father, Michael Pretti, said. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.” (washingtonpost.com)
State-federal standoff over who investigates
The shooting immediately intensified a running clash over who has authority to investigate federal agents operating inside Minnesota. Governor Tim Walz said Minnesota – not the federal government – would lead the investigation, but state officials complained they were blocked from the scene by DHS personnel. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said its agents obtained a judge’s warrant yet were still denied access, an unusual step that state investigators said they had “never” previously encountered. Federal officials later withdrew from the area, but the site was no longer secure for state evidence collection as protesters poured in, according to BCA leaders. (fox9.com)
The dispute reprises a legal clash that erupted after Good’s January 7 killing, when federal authorities told Minnesota they would control the inquiry. Legal experts note that while the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause can shield federal officers from state prosecution if they acted lawfully within their duties, that protection is not absolute and hinges on the facts – a doctrine rooted in the Supreme Court’s 1890 In re Neagle decision and tested in modern officer‑involved cases. The coming weeks are likely to test not only the limits of federal immunity but also how far a state can go in demanding access to a crime scene controlled by federal agents. (washingtonpost.com)
Operation far from the border, at the center of a national policy fight
The shooting unfolded amid “Operation Metro Surge,” an ongoing DHS campaign that has flooded the Twin Cities with thousands of immigration agents since early January. Minnesota’s attorney general and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul sued to halt the surge, calling it unconstitutional and alleging a pattern of excessive force and warrantless arrests in schools, hospitals, and other sensitive locations. DHS has said it is expanding interior enforcement and has rolled back prior limits on operations in “protected areas,” framing the surge as an effort to remove dangerous offenders and enforce federal immigration law. (ag.state.mn.us)
Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection asserts special authorities within 100 miles of an external boundary, Minneapolis lies well beyond that zone; inside the United States, both CBP and ICE must still meet constitutional standards for searches, seizures, and use of force. DHS’ department‑wide policy updated in 2023 requires de‑escalation, prohibits chokeholds except where deadly force is otherwise authorized, and limits no‑knock entries. Those internal rules sit atop the constitutional floor set by the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, interpreted over decades of Supreme Court rulings on police use of force. (aclu.org)
Echoes of 2020 – and a transparency gap
As demonstrators gathered near the cordoned‑off intersection, officers used batons, pepper spray and flashbangs to push crowds back. The scenes, captured on yet more cell phones, revived memories in Minneapolis of 2020 protests and raised fresh concerns about whether force used to police the demonstrators would itself face independent scrutiny.
The absence of body‑camera footage again loomed large: many ICE and Border Patrol officers still do not wear body cameras, after program funding and staffing were cut in 2025, leaving investigators and the public reliant on bystanders’ phones to reconstruct critical moments. Civil rights advocates and some lawmakers have already signaled they will press for renewed funding and mandatory camera deployment in federal immigration operations, arguing that the lack of video undermines confidence in official accounts. (washingtonpost.com)
Politics erupt in Washington
Within hours, the shooting had become a national flashpoint in an already polarised debate over immigration enforcement and federal power in the states. Walz castigated the federal presence in a statement on Saturday:
It is a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed yet another life
He added, “The federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed yet another life.” He also posted, “I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening. The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.”
President Donald Trump defended federal agents in an extended message on his social platform, writing: “The Mayor and the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric!” and “LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB! 12,000 Illegal Alien Criminals, many of them violent, have been arrested and taken out of Minnesota.” Vice President JD Vance posted that “what the ICE agents wanted more than anything was to work with local law enforcement so that situations on the ground didn’t get out of hand.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised ICE “patriots,” adding: “we have your back 100%” and, “Shame on the leadership of Minnesota – and the lunatics in the street. ICE MN.” House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson called for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment, saying, “Apparently, the Trump administration and its secret police only support the First and Second Amendments when it’s convenient to them,” and “This is un-American and has to stop. The House must immediately take steps to impeach Kristi Noem.” (dhs.gov)
The showdown now threatens to spill into formal proceedings on Capitol Hill, where House and Senate committees overseeing homeland security and justice policy are under pressure from both parties either to defend the surge as a lawful assertion of federal authority or to curb it as an overreach into state policing and civil rights.
What we know about the victim
Pretti was a U.S. citizen and longtime Minneapolis resident who worked as an ICU nurse caring for veterans. State officials and public records indicate he had no criminal record beyond minor traffic matters and was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry. His parents said he had joined demonstrations after Good’s death earlier this month. Saturday’s fatal encounter occurred roughly a mile from where Good was shot on January 7. (washingtonpost.com)
Friends and colleagues described Pretti as politically engaged but nonviolent, someone who regularly worked night shifts at the hospital and had spoken about the strain repeated confrontations between law enforcement and communities of colour were placing on his patients and neighbours. For many protesters, his death – as a citizen, health worker and lawful gun owner – has become a pointed symbol in arguments about who is being swept up in Operation Metro Surge.
Standards, scrutiny, and next steps
Under DHS policy, agents may use force only when no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative exists, and only to the degree objectively reasonable under the circumstances – a standard that will be measured against witness accounts, video evidence, and any physical evidence recovered. Past federal officer shootings have often turned on whether the officer acted within federal authority and necessity – questions that may ultimately be contested in federal court if Minnesota pursues charges or civil action. (dhs.gov)
The federal government’s conduct will also be judged against the broader framework of U.S. constitutional law governing policing, including Supreme Court precedents on objective reasonableness in the use of force and on the balance of power between states and Washington under the Supremacy Clause, as set out in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. Any criminal case, civil lawsuit or congressional inquiry arising from Pretti’s death is likely to hinge on how those abstractions apply to the granular details now being fought over – whether he held a phone or a gun, whether commands were given, and whether state investigators were improperly shut out of the scene.
As of Saturday night, January 24, 2026, the intersection near 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue remained restricted, the Minnesota National Guard was assisting local police, and state officials said their investigation would proceed despite being denied full access to the scene earlier in the day. (apnews.com)
