The sister of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse shot dead by federal agents in Minneapolis, has slammed what she called the “disgusting lies” spread about her brother.
“When does this end? How many more innocent lives must be lost before we say enough?” Micayla Pretti told the Associated Press. “Hearing disgusting lies spread about my brother is absolutely gut-wrenching.”
Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, was fatally shot by federal immigration agents during an enforcement operation in the city on Saturday.
Pretti was at the scene when federal agents were carrying out a targeted operation aimed at apprehending an undocumented person “wanted for violent assault.”
Witnesses say federal agents chased a person into a donut shop, drawing onlookers who began recording. Video and accounts show Pretti filming and moving toward an agent after a bystander was pushed down, appearing to try to help her up before he was pepper-sprayed, restrained, and shot.
Federal authorities initially claimed Pretti approached officers with a handgun and resisted attempts to disarm him, justifying the use of deadly force.
But numerous bystander videos and witness statements directly contradict that account. Footage widely circulated and verified by major outlets shows Pretti holding a cellphone, not a gun, moments before he was pepper-sprayed and tackled by agents.
In several clips, federal officers are seen restraining him on the ground, and an agent appears to remove a firearm from Pretti’s waistband shortly before shots are fired. No publicly released video shows Pretti brandishing or threatening anyone with a weapon.
Local officials have said Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry who had no criminal record. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed his status and questioned the federal narrative.
The shooting occurred amid a brutal anti-immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, led by Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, that has drawn mass protests and legal challenges. As polls show voters turning away from Donald Trump on the issue of immigration, the president yesterday announced that he would be sending his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota, with Bovino transferred back to his normal border job in California.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” a Pretti family statement said. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. 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. He was a good man. Thank you.”
But Trump administration officials have been quick to brand Pretti as a threat to law enforcement.
Speaking before his demotion, Bovino asserted that Pretti confronted agents while armed and said he “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller went further, calling Pretti an “assassin” who “tried to murder” federal agents in a post on X, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly referred to him as a “domestic terrorist.”
“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts,” she said at a news conference Saturday.
Fox News reported that officials inside the Department of Homeland Security have grown “increasingly uneasy and frustrated” at members of the Trump administration who are calling Pretti a “terrorist” and insisting that he had intended to harm federal immigration agents, despite the publicly available evidence.
His sister rejected that characterization, describing him instead as someone motivated by compassion and a desire to help others.
“All Alex ever wanted was to help someone—anyone,” Micayla Pretti said. “Even in his very last moments on this earth, he was simply trying to do just that.”
She added of her older brother: “He touched more lives than he probably ever realized.”
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