An eyewitness who was featured prominently in the first videos of Alex Pretti’s slaying by federal agents is speaking out for the first time.
Stella Carlson – initially referred to as the “pink coat lady” online – was on her way Saturday morning to paint children’s faces at a church when she happened upon the encounter between the 37-year-old Pretti and immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis, and she was just standing feet away when officers tackled him to the ground and shot him, reported CNN.
“I know every time I leave my vehicle or leave my house and I put that whistle around my neck, I know because of Renee Good, the risk,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during an interview Tuesday. “I think we all knew after that happened, it is now at that point, and it could be any of us.”
Carlson first spotted Pretti directing traffic as she was driving on Nicollet Avenue and heard bystanders blowing whistles to warn that immigration officers were on patrol in the area.
“It felt like somebody in my opinion, in my background, who was doing a risk assessment and found his place in this moment to be useful,” Carlson said.
She got out of her car and started recording video of the situation, and what she captured became a crucial piece of evidence to dispute the Trump administration’s attempt to smear Pretti as a would-be assassin or domestic terrorist.
Carlson’s video showed the intensive care nurse spending his last moments attempting to help a woman who agents had shoved to the ground, and it captured an officer removing Pretti’s handgun from its holster seconds before other agents pinned him down and fired multiple gunshots into his back.
“I remember him arching his back and his head rolling back,” Carlson said.
“I knew he was gone because I watched it,” she added, “and then they come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors, and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got, like he’s a deer.”
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