For the third time in January, federal immigration agents have opened fire on a person in Minneapolis. This time, the result was a 37-year-old American citizen lying dead on a sidewalk, a permitted handgun near his body, and a city boiling over with a singular, furious question: Under what law does this operate?
The shooting Saturday morning, captured in videos that show masked agents beating a man before gunshots erupt, marks a grim escalation.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Administration ICU nurse, was identified as the victim fatally shot by federal immigration officers. Remembered by colleague Dimitri Drekonja, MD, as a “good, kind person,” Pretti was deeply passionate about helping others.
It follows the Jan. 7 killing of 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Good, who was murdered by ICE agent Jonathan Ross during a traffic encounter. Together, the two deaths form a grim syllabus on the new realities of federal enforcement.
Good’s execution-style death revealed that traffic violations are now capital offenses, while the latest victim demonstrated that availing oneself of his Second Amendment rights can also have lethal consequences.
The Department of Homeland Security said the incident began as a “targeted operation” and that the man “violently resisted” and approached agents with a 9mm pistol, leading to an “armed struggle” and an agent firing in fear for his life.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Video footage, however, tells a more visceral story.
It shows a cluster of federal agents swarming a man on the ground, with one agent visible striking the victim on the head three times with a handgun before the first shot is fired. At least 10 shots rang out within five seconds.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey did not mince words. “We have watched video of masked federal agents pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death,” he said. “The impunity with which these agents are operating is unacceptable.”
Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, called directly on President Donald Trump to withdraw ICE from Minneapolis and allow state authorities to lead the investigation. “Minnesota has had it,” Walz stated.
The response from Washington took a different tack.
Senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, within hours and without citing evidence, labeled the deceased a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.”
This characterization, delivered before any independent investigation could begin, was dismissed by local leaders as a dangerous and familiar tactic to justify the ongoing presence of federal agents, whose operations have been funded by a historic $170 billion infusion from Congress last year.
The scene in the city’s Eat Street neighborhood devolved into a familiar chaos.
Hundreds of protesters faced off against lines of federal agents and police, their chants of “Shame!” and “ICE are Nazis” met with volleys of tear gas and flashbang grenades that lingered in the subzero air.
It was a repeat of the protests that had followed each shooting, including the large demonstrations just one day prior, demanding the removal of federal forces.
The paradox at the heart of the crisis is now undeniable.
The second victim was, by all accounts, exercising a right codified in state law and celebrated in national political discourse.
Yet that right offered no protection in a confrontation with the very federal authority that many gun rights proponents champion.
It’s a glaring contradiction that reveals a major shift: the reach of enforcement has grown to the point where it can confront a legally armed citizen with overwhelming, deadly force, while the official explanation comes ready-made as a political tool.
As the smoke from the flashbangs clears over Minneapolis, the central conflict is no longer about immigration alone.
It is about who investigates, who dictates the narrative, and who, in the end, is permitted to walk away from a killing on an American street.
The videos suggest a brutal answer. The community, watching its third shooting in as many weeks, is demanding another.