Local Veterans Affairs officials in Minneapolis claimed that national leadership tried to shut down a planned memorial for slain VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti.
Officials from the Minneapolis VA said that “local leadership was instructed to pause the memorial” that was scheduled to honor Pretti on Tuesday at noon, according to an email obtained by The New Republic.
A Minneapolis VA employee who spoke with the publication anonymously for fear of retaliation said, “In other words, somebody told our people, ‘Back off.’”
“Our local leadership I think is very good, they’re quite sensitive, I mean they’re really trying to do that. But they’re getting it from above,” the employee continued. “I mean, there’s supposed to be a memorial service yesterday, they’re told to postpone it? I mean, come on! That doesn’t seem consistent with how they usually respond.”
“As an institution, we owe it to him,” the employee added. “And I think the formal ritualized events help some people.”
Pretti, 37, was shot and killed by federal Border Patrol agents on Saturday in Minneapolis after they punched him, disarmed him of the handgun he was legally carrying but did not brandish, and tackled him when he stepped in between them and a woman who had been shoved to the ground.
The two unnamed Border Patrol officers were placed on a three-day administrative leave following Pretti’s death, after which they will return to “desk duty,” MS NOW reported.
When reached for comment about why the initial Tuesday memorial for Pretti was paused, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs referred the Daily Beast to the Minneapolis VA.
“VA employees are welcome to memorialize Alex Pretti in their own way as long as they are respectful and it does not interfere with their work duties,” the spokesperson for the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Melanie Nelson, told the Daily Beast in a statement.
“To that end, several small memorials have already taken place at the facility, and we are planning a formal memorial event for next week,” the statement concluded.
VA employees also reportedly have yet to receive agency-wide acknowledgment of Pretti’s death, The Washington Post reported.
When pressed for comment on the acknowledgment of Pretti’s death by national leadership, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs referred the Daily Beast to a post on X from VA Secretary Doug Collins, who was appointed last year by President Donald Trump at the start of his second term.
“As President Trump has said, nobody wants to see chaos and death in American cities, and we send our condolences to the Pretti family,” Collins wrote on Sunday. “Such tragedies are unfortunately happening in Minnesota because of state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals.”
The statement is not available on the agency’s website, and the national VA department has not confirmed whether Collins’ statement was shared with VA employees via email.
The statement frustrated employees at the local hospital for its politicization of Pretti’s killing, a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees said in a statement.
“AFGE Local 3669 is disgusted by the abhorrent rhetoric of Trump administration officials following his killing,” the statement read. “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 Doug Collins, who chose to use the murder of his own employee to push partisan, political narratives,” it continued.
In a public hearing on Wednesday, Collins, a failed GOP senator, addressed the matter again, saying he wanted to “express my deepest sympathies to the family and colleagues of Minneapolis VA medical center nurse Alex Pretti,” though he offered no further comment.
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