Veterans Affairs employees have not received any agencywide acknowledgment of the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, frustrating workers already upset by Trump officials’ immediate response to their colleague’s death, according to current and former officials and employees.
The 37-year-old Pretti, who worked at the Minneapolis VA, was fatally shot Saturdayby federal agents participating in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown across the city.
Videos of Pretti’s death were widely shared online, with tensions further inflamed by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and other senior officials claiming that Pretti posed a violent threat to agents. Administration officials have since pulled back from those claims, which conflict with video evidence, but have yet to offer any formal message inside the agency about Pretti’s death.
VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins on Wednesday told senators in a hearing that he wanted to “express my deepest sympathies to the family and colleagues of Minneapolis VA medical center nurse Alex Pretti,” adding that the killing remains under investigation and that he would not comment further.
The comments followed Collins’s X post on Sunday that angered some employees of VA’s facility, with the secretary blaming Pretti’s death on “state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals.” Collins’s post was not shared on the agency website or by email with employees.
VA officials in Washington also initially blocked Minneapolis hospital employees from holding a memorial for Pretti, though that decision was later reversed, according to two employees who like some others for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. Staff were also initially told not to leave messages of support for Pretti in some of the center’s public spaces, the employees said. A memorial is now planned for next week.
A colleague of Pretti’s, Daniel Amyx, told mourners at a D.C. memorial held Wednesday night that he had tried to give a manager at his hospital a button that read “Remember Alex Pretti” but the supervisor declined. Doug Massey, a union official based on Washington, blasted Collins in later remarks, saying he did not support VA employees or veterans.
On Wednesday, Minneapolis VA Medical Center spokeswoman Melanie Nelson said that VA employees were “welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties.”
“To that end, several small memorials have already taken place at the facility, and we are planning a formal memorial event for next week,” she wrote in a statement.
Collins and other administration officials have claimed that Minnesota officials have not cooperated with the federal government, which has been disputed by state officials. The Minnesota Department of Corrections said the state has notified federal immigration officials of undocumented immigrants in its prisons and honored federal requests to hold people under deportation orders.
Collins’s initial comment disappointed employees at the Minneapolis hospital, according to employees and the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents federal workers.
“AFGE Local 3669 is disgusted by the abhorrent rhetoric of Trump administration officials following his killing,” the local union said in a statement. “Alex was a son, a colleague, and a fellow union brother, not an ‘assassin’ or a ‘domestic terrorist.’ We are especially disappointed with VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins, who chose to use the murder of his own employee to push partisan, political narratives.”
The latest turmoil comes after months of low morale among VA’s workforce, which is down more than 30,000 employeesfrom the start of last year. Most of those employees left through buyout offers and retirement programs, according to workforce data.
Julie Kroviak, the acting assistant inspector general for health care inspections, told senators last month that the watchdog has observed an erosion in morale among staff members who decided to stay after voluntary buyouts last year.
“We are getting more feedback that morale is going down because of the uncertainty within the federal government,” she said.
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