The nurse who was fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday was pushed to the ground by different agents at a protest 11 days before he was killed, according to newly unearthed videos that show him spitting and cursing at them and kicking a taillight on one of their S.U.V.s.
The footage adds to what is known about the 37-year-old nurse, Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents on Saturday morning after they pepper sprayed him and pushed him and a woman to the ground, a killing that set off protests in the Twin Cities and across the country.
In the earlier incident, on Jan. 13, Mr. Pretti — wearing some of the same clothing as when he was killed — can be seen running toward a street corner in the South Minneapolis neighborhood of Powderhorn where a crowd of protesters have gathered and are jeering at federal agents.
“What are you doing here?” he shouts at agents who are standing next to two of their S.U.V.s. He repeatedly curses at them and spits at one agent as the agent is getting into a vehicle. When the agents begin to drive away, Mr. Pretti kicks twice at one of the vehicle’s taillights, breaking it. That seems to prompt the agents to get back out of the vehicle and push him to the ground.
The agents, at least some of whom are with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hold Mr. Pretti on the ground for about 20 seconds before letting him go and driving off.
As Mr. Pretti gets back to his feet, what appears to be a gun is seen tucked into the back waistband of his pants. During the later confrontation with agents in which Mr. Pretti was killed, he had a gun holstered on his hip. One agent grabbed the gun from Mr. Pretti’s holster moments before two other agents shot at Mr. Pretti.
Both of the officers who fired — one with Border Patrol and another with its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection — have been put on leave as part of the agency’s protocol for when agents are involved in shootings. Neither has been identified.
At least two videos showing Mr. Pretti’s earlier encounter with federal agents had been online for about two weeks. But it wasn’t until Wednesday, when a news outlet called The News Movement published another video of the confrontation and identified Mr. Pretti in the footage, that the encounter attracted attention. A representative for Mr. Pretti’s family confirmed that it was him in the video published by the news outlet.
“A week before Alex was gunned down in the street — despite posing no threat to anyone — he was violently assaulted” by federal agents, a lawyer for Mr. Pretti’s family, Steve Schleicher, said in a statement. “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing.”
Mr. Pretti’s parents and sister have denounced lies that they say Trump administration officials have perpetuated about Mr. Pretti, and have described him as a good man who helped treat sick patients at Minneapolis’s Veterans Affairs hospital.
Reporting was contributed by Hamed Aleaziz, Robin Stein and Haley Willis.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports for The Times on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice.
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