By: Al Ballesteros
Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis on January 24.
Just as with Renee Good, the shooting of Alex Pretti is horrifying. According to videos in the public domain, news reports and witness accounts, Mr. Pretti was filming ICE interactions with the public on the streets of Minneapolis with his cell phone. According to reports and video footage, he went to assist a woman who had been pushed down to the street by an ICE agent and then became caught up in a struggle with agents himself. After several seconds in the struggle, shots are heard and Mr. Pretti was killed.
Alex’s father told the Associated Press that his son “…cared about people deeply…and, was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis….”
Alex Pretti was a Registered Nurse at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After the shooting, colleagues in the nursing industry were said to have been distraught because of the loss of this RN who took care of veterans at the VA. He is said to have been a kind person described by co-workers as the first person to jump in to help when help was needed.
At a press conference on January 25, 2026, Keith Ellison the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota says Officials of the State’s Bureau of Investigations, arrived on site after the shooting and were refused access to the scene. Ellison says the agency then secured a judicial warrant signed by a judge and was still refused access. Ellison says the agency is charged with investigating crimes as well as use of force cases.
Ellison says Minnesota is a state with a low level of immigration. He continued that the large numbers of deployed of ICE agents, between 2,000 and 3,000 called Operation Metro Surge, appears to be the largest deployment of Immigration agents to one location/city ever in the United States.
“…We’ve had two killings in two weeks and an additional non-lethal shooting. We’ve had countless numbers of people who have been stopped and…the demand for their papers, to show their papers”… “..we’ve had door to door knocks where people have had their homes barged into without cause of right…we’ve had stores that have had to shutter, students not going to school…reductions of employees not going to their job sites, … markets being shut down, markets being interfered with..”
Because of all this, Ellison says his team is seeking a restraining order against Operation Metro Surge.
The community is calling for a full investigation of the shooting. As of the writing of this article, the Justice Department has said it will do an internal investigation. Minnesota officials and the community do not feel this is enough and call for an impartial investigation to determine what happened.