The facts speak louder than words. The Minneapolis Perp, goes to a rally with a nine millimeter firearm, that is loaded, plus he alleged to have two magazines filled to the brim with rounds. On the face of it one can interpret his motive as mayhem, destruction and murder. If he wasn’t shot dead, many innocent people would have been killed. But don’t take our word for it, let’s go to the video tape.
The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm’s way, then made him a martyr
The skirmish that led to Saturday’s fatal shooting of an agitator by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis and the response that followed were driven by a complex network of far-left organizations with a wide range of causes, a Fox News Digital investigation found.
A coordinated web of encrypted chats, street alerts and tracking of ICE “Abductors” in a sophisticated database reviewed by Fox News Digital shows that agitators were already mobilized at the scene where 37-year-old Alex Pretti (a Perp looking for trouble) was killed minutes before any shots were fired.
ICE and Border Patrol agents were there to arrest an illegal immigrant criminal, and Pretti and others were there, outside a donut shop, to meet them as part of a strategic pattern of organized interference with law enforcement operations.
“Multiple vehicles with many agents appear to be staging there,” the alert continued. “One confirmed ICE vehicle seen was a maroon Dodge Durango [plate number], but it has driven away northbound on Nicollet.” Fox News Digital has redacted the Florida license plate number included in the original message.
ICE Assistant Director Marcos Charles said Sunday that the violence on the streets was “not a coincidence,” considering the “chaos and mayhem” that agitators are fomenting in Minneapolis. At the same press conference, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino confirmed that Pretti was “on the scene several minutes” before the fatal shooting.
Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked “NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER,” a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.
Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.
At 10:18 a.m. ET, the Signal network erupted.
Using a red phone emoji to signal an all-points alert, a message blasted out: “☎️ easy. URGENT: observers urgently requested at glam doll donuts @ 26th & nicollet [sic],” the alert continued. “an observer has been shot by ice, unknown condition, emts [emergency medical technicians] present, please be safe. EDIT: medics requested to join perimeter in case agents start gassing. be aware there are many agents and mpd [Minneapolis Police Department] officers present.”
Within minutes, far-left activists descended on Nicollet Avenue. Soon after, a video showed corrugated boxes of supplies apparently lined up on a Minneapolis sidewalk for protesters, including boxes marked “DESINER MASKS” [sic] and “FREE WINTER HATS,” next to piles of bottled water.
MINNESOTA AGITATORS STALK, PELT BORDER PATROL AGENTS WITH FOOD AND SPIT AT GAS STATIONS, DHS SAYS
Within hours, socialist leaders turbocharged their “rapid responders” in Minneapolis and mobilized street protesters from New York City to Los Angeles.
Media outlets, including CNN and MSNOW, described “angry protesters” but failed to identify the ideological networks behind the mobilization, even as protesters flashed their signs with their logos and names, touting socialism, communism and Marxism, on camera.
The Minneapolis activation marked the beginning of an almost instantaneous weekend surge by far-left organizations, including hardened socialist and communist groups operating in an ecosystem that national security experts describe as an insurgent-style operation designed to exploit tragedy to wage a domestic political war.
The strategy mirrors past mobilizations, including the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in May 2020, and exploits well-intentioned public sympathy by rapidly framing Pretti — an intensive care unit nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital — as a symbol of resistance, much like Renee Good, the first victim of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
Just as they responded in real-time to mobilize “comrades” to march on the streets within 12 hours of the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in early January, socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist groups now frame their activation as an action within the “belly of the beast” against the “hyperimperialism” of the United States.
VANCE CALLS MINNEAPOLIS UNREST ‘ENGINEERED CHAOS’ AFTER DEADLY SHOOTING.
Videos of Alex Pretti shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis contradict Trump official claims
Points
- The Department of Homeland Security claimed Alex Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and “violently resisted” when agents attempted to disarm him.
- DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the agent who shot Pretti, saying he fired “defensive” shots after the victim violently brandished a gun.
- Bystander videos verified by CNBC, filmed from different angles, appear to tell a different story.
On Saturday, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. There’s a wide gap between what Americans have seen of the shooting and what federal officials are telling them.
Soon after the shooting, Department of Homeland Security officials rushed to defend the officers involved, claiming the victim “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and that when federal agents attempted to disarm him, “the suspect violently resisted.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the Border Patrol agent who shot Pretti, saying in a news conference that the agent fired “defensive” shots after the victim violently brandished a gun. “The officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently,” Noem said.
In a separate news conference, Greg Bovino, Border Patrol commander at large, claimed Pretti may have wanted to do “maximum damage” and “massacre law enforcement.”
But videos taken by bystanders, filmed from several different angles, tell a different story.
In the first video verified by CNBC, protesters can be heard honking their horns on an urban Minneapolis street, while the video’s author records through a car windshield as the car moves.
watch now
VIDEO00:53
GRAPHIC WARNING: Video shows moments before federal immigration agents fatally shoot man in Minnesota
At 15 seconds, the camera pans to the left to show a man on the side of the street wearing a brown jacket and tan pants (believed to be Alex Pretti) holding up what appears to be a phone while being confronted by two federal agents.
Pretti steps backwards away from the confrontation while appearing to yell at an agent.
At 21 seconds, the person filming the video drives past the confrontation, and the camera swings to the other side of the street as someone in the car yells profanities.
In a second video verified by CNBC, protesters can be heard blowing whistles and honking their horns at federal agents in a video on a cold Minneapolis street.
At seven seconds, the video shows a man dressed in tactical gear believed to be a federal agent shove a woman wearing a brown jacket and black leggings in the back near the side of the street. She doesn’t fall but moves several feet away because of the shove.
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VIDEO01:02
GRAPHIC WARNING: Federal immigration agents confront man moments before fatal shooting
The camera briefly shifts to the middle of the street before going back to the confrontation on the side at 11 seconds. The agent is face-to-face with one woman wearing a long cream jacket and charcoal pants. Next to her is a man in a brown jacket and tan pants believed to be Pretti, and next to him is the woman in brown jacket, black leggings who was shoved seconds ago.
At 12 seconds in the second video, the agent shoves the woman wearing the cream jacket to the ground. Pretti puts himself between the agent and the woman, who is on her back in a snowbank on the side of the road.
At 14 seconds, the agent starts spraying Pretti in the face with a chemical agent. Pretti covers his face and turns away from the officer. Other agents wearing vests approach the confrontation.
At 22 seconds, several agents are struggling with Pretti, attempting to bring him to the ground. He appears to fall to the ground, and at 28 seconds you see one agent apparently swinging a punch at his head while Pretti is down.
At this point, bystanders are recording, and whistles are making noise constantly.
By 38 seconds, at least six agents seem to have restrained the man believed to be Pretti on the ground.
One agent appears to take a weapon from Pretti and quickly walks away while holding the gun. A gunshot is heard at 40 seconds. It is unclear if the man holding the gun fired the shot. Following the first shot, more gunshots are heard in quick succession.
In a third video verified by CNBC, taken by someone on the street near the incident, protesters are blowing whistles at federal agents.
watch now
VIDEO01:27
GRAPHIC WARNING: Video shows moment federal immigration agents shoot man in Minnesota
At 25 seconds, a man wearing a brown jacket and tan pants believed to be Pretti is holding his hand up in the middle of the street. He waves a car past and then starts walking. The camera then shifts away for a moment to a snowbank. A protester can be heard shouting, “What is wrong with you?”
At 33 seconds into the third video, Pretti has his arm around a woman in a dark green jacket and black leggings, apparently attempting to help her. He steps in front of a federal agent closing in on a woman who is on her back in the snowbank on the side of the road.
At 40 seconds, Pretti has his hand up to a federal agent who is spraying him with some kind of chemical agent. Two agents drag him onto his back and more agents join in a circle around the man in tan pants. A struggle takes place on the ground, with six agents surrounding the man in tan pants.
At 60 seconds, one of the agents can be seen stepping back from the confrontation and he draws his gun and points it at Pretti.
At 1:01, a single shot can be heard, followed by several in quick succession. The man on the ground, Pretti, slumps down.
Amid screams, at 1:04, another flurry of gunshots can be heard.
At no point in any of the three videos shown here does Alex Pretti brandish a weapon or appear to threaten federal immigration agents before the confrontation begins, as was claimed by DHS Sec. Noem and others in the Trump administration.
One video also appears to show a federal officer removing a weapon from Pretti while he’s being restrained by agents on the ground before any shots are fired.
Pretti is a lawful gun owner and owns a permit for his weapon.
Misfire of victim’s gun could have triggered fatal ICE shooting
Robert MendickChief Reporter
Alex Pretti’s weapon may have been fired accidentally by immigration officer running from scene
The fatal shooting of a nurse by ICE agents may have been prompted by one of the officers “negligently” firing the victim’s gun, it has emerged.
Video footage shows Alex Pretti’s gun being taken from him by a border agent as he lies on the ground while being beaten by other officers.
That, in turn, may have “spooked” the other Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the scene into firing a number of rounds at Pretti, 37, as he lay unarmed and defenceless on the ground.