Across social media, pro-Trump influencers and others muddled the evidence of the killing of a nurse in Minneapolis on Saturday with social media posts that included misdirection and fabricated content.
While verified videos and witnesses showed how federal immigration agents tackled and shot Alex Pretti, 37, the posts tried to warp the events, including in ways intended to support the Trump administration’s claims that Mr. Pretti was at fault for his own death. Some posts smeared him or portrayed him as a radical activist.
Nick Sortor, a pro-Trump influencer with 1.4 million followers on X, incorrectly identified Mr. Pretti, a U.S. citizen, as an unauthorized immigrant. Jack Posobiec, a Trump loyalist with 3.3 million followers on X, falsely described Mr. Pretti as having “run up on police” and drawn a gun — claims that other users on X corrected in an appended note. Photos of different men — dressed in drag or shirtless at a street festival — were wrongly identified as Mr. Pretti and shared widely.
Mr. Posobiec, Mr. Sortor and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The chaotic scene was captured on video from several angles, yet that shaky footage added to debate online, where it was rapidly interpreted and scrutinized.
Authenticated footage shows Mr. Pretti, who had no known criminal record and had a permit to carry a concealed firearm, stepping in front of a woman being pepper-sprayed by an agent before being restrained himself. One agent removed Mr. Pretti’s pistol, which he had not drawn, and then another shot him repeatedly in the back. Witnesses corroborated the details in the videos.
The flurry of online activity echoed the broader political narratives that emerged after the shooting. Top Trump administration officials have repeatedly lodged unsubstantiated accusations of domestic terrorism against Mr. Pretti, who was pinned down and had been disarmed when agents opened fire.
Some conservative accounts pushed back against the Trump administration’s narrative. Responding to the Trump administration’s suggestion that Mr. Pretti wanted to “massacre” law enforcement, Tim Pool, a right-wing podcaster, wrote on X that Mr. Pretti “clearly was not intending to massacre ICE.”
Still, many social media users repeated the Trump administration’s representation of events. Others posted images of the scene misleadingly altered with artificial intelligence.
One image, for example, was edited to depict Mr. Pretti pointing a gun at an agent, though he was actually holding a phone. Another was altered with Gemini, Google’s A.I. tool, supposedly to enhance and sharpen it to reveal key details about the scene. The altered image included obvious errors, including changes to Mr. Pretti’s face. It also removed a gun from the agent’s hand, fueling more debate on social media over what had happened.
Tiffany Hsu reports on the information ecosystem, including foreign influence, political speech and disinformation
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