Protests after federal agents shoot another US citizen dead in Minneapolis
By Al Jazeera, January 25, 2026Federal agents in the United States have shot dead another person in Minneapolis amid an immigration crackdown, authorities said, spurring protests and new calls for President Donald Trump to pull heavily armed officers out of the city in Minnesota state immediately.
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara told reporters that a 37-year-old man died in the hospital on Saturday, January 24, 2026, after being shot multiple times. The Minneapolis resident was a US citizen, O’Hara said.
The man’s parents identified him as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse.
The incident took place amid a weeks-long deployment of immigration enforcement and other federal agents to Minneapolis, where they have been carrying out raids as part of Trump’s anti-immigration push.
It also happened amid widespread daily protests in Minneapolis since the January 7 shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was killed when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fired into her vehicle.
Federal agents also shot a Venezuelan man in a separate incident last week in the city.
“This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said during a separate news conference in Saint Paul, the state’s capital and Minneapolis’s twin city.
“It’s a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed another life,” said Walz, pledging that Minnesota would handle the investigation into the killing.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the agent fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.
Federal officials said the officer who shot Pretti is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran.
Trump weighed in on social media by lashing out at Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He shared images of the gun that immigration officials said was recovered and said, “What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Officers?”
The Republican president said the Democratic governor and mayor “are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric”.
He was a good man
In bystander videos, Pretti can be seen standing in the street and filming agents with his mobile phone.
The videos show one of the agents apparently deploying pepper spray at Pretti and other protesters. While Pretti attempts to block the spray and help other protesters, several agents wrestle him to the ground and begin striking him with blows to the head and body.
As they hold Pretti on the ground, one of the agents draws his weapon and multiple shots are fired. Pretti’s body can be seen in the street.
Bellingcat, a group of researchers and journalists who conduct open-source investigations, said footage of the shooting “appears to show that a gun was taken from the man before the first shot was fired”.
“Two different agents are visibly firing their guns, with at least 10 shots being heard in total. Most of them are fired after a brief delay, when the man is already lying motionless on the ground,” the group said.