An eyewitness to the fatal shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti said she still has not been contacted by any federal authorities investigating the incident.
In an interview Tuesday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Stella Carlson, the woman whose video of Pretti’s killing exposed the Trump administration’s claims as false, said she believed federal authorities were delaying contact because they wanted to “protect themselves and to spin stories” about Pretti’s death.
Carlson’s eyewitness footage circulated widely online and quickly debunked several lies that Trump officials tried to push in the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Pretti of “attacking” officers and “brandishing” a gun, while top White House aide Stephen Miller described Pretti as “a domestic terrorist” and “assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.” Carlson’s video directly contradicted these claims, showing that Pretti, who had a permit to carry a concealed pistol, did not brandish his firearm. The footage also showed he did not make any attempt to attack agents and was instead thrown to the ground before being shot several times.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Carlson said of watching the shooting unfold.
She said the agents initially “scattered” before returning to ostensibly try to render some sort of aid to Pretti and “maneuvering his body around like a rag doll.”
Of claims made by another witness who said agents moved Pretti’s body to count the bullet holes, Carlson said: “I watched that and that is what it felt like they were doing.” She expressed disgust at them appearing to treat him “like he’s a deer.”
Carlson said she provided a sworn statement shortly after the shooting but had not been contacted by federal law enforcement as of Tuesday.
Carlson’s attorney said that “she had not received any outreach from the FBI or anybody from the federal government,” according to Cooper.
“I do not think they have my name yet. Obviously, they will,” Carlson said.
“They‘re protecting themselves and they don‘t care about the truth of what happened,” she said. “They’re looking for their way to create the truth that protects them and allows them to move forward with whatever it is which we all have various ideas of what that looks like. But whatever it is that their long game is in, in creating this violence in our streets, our streets.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for comment.
An initial Department of Homeland Security report obtained by CBS News found that two Border Patrol agents had fired their guns at Pretti. The report said an agent repeatedly shouted that Pretti had a gun before the two agents opened fire.
The findings contradicted a statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security on Saturday, which said that “an agent fired defensive shots” at the 37-year-old.
A CBP spokesperson told the Daily Beast in a statement that the report is part of standard protocol that “provide[s] an initial outline of an event that took place and do[es] not convey any definitive conclusion or investigative findings.”
“They are factual reports – not analytical judgments – and are provided to inform Congress and to promote transparency,” the spokesperson said.
Pretti’s death followed another fatal shooting earlier in January, when 37-year-old mother Renée Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
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