Call for calm after man shot and killed during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
Governor Tim Walz said in a social media post that he had been in contact with the White House after the shooting.
Federal immigration officers shot and killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday, drawing hundreds of protesters to the streets in a city already shaken by another fatal shooting weeks earlier.
The details surrounding the shooting were not immediately clear, but Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the person was shot amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said a 37-year-old man was killed. He was identified by his parents as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse. Mr O’Hara urged people to remain peaceful and not to destroy the city.
Mr O’Hara said there was limited information about the shooting. He called on people to leave the area and said it is “not sustainable”.
“Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city to do so with the same discipline, humanity and integrity that effective law enforcement in this country demands,” the chief said.
“We urge everyone to remain peaceful. We recognise that there is a lot of anger and a lot of questions around what has happened, but we need people to remain peaceful in the area.”
The Minnesota National Guard was assisting local police amid growing protests.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told the Associated Press in a text message that the person had a firearm with two magazines and that the situation was “evolving”.
She said officers fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him.
Mr O’Hara said the man’s only previous interaction with law enforcement as far as he knew was for traffic tickets.
“And we believe he is a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry,” he said.
The officer who shot the man is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said.
The shooting happened amid widespread daily protests in the Twin Cities since the January 7 shooting of Renee Good, 37, who was killed when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officer fired into her vehicle.
Saturday’s shooting unfolded just over a mile away from where Ms Good was shot.
A bystander video obtained by The Associated Press is understood to show at least seven officers surrounding the man, before shots are heard and the officers back away.
Mr Walz, a Democrat, said in a social media post that he had been in contact with the White House after the shooting. He urged President Donald Trump to end what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
“Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now,” Mr Walz said in a post on X.
The DHS distributed a photo of a handgun they said was on the person who was shot.
After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home.
One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.” Agents elsewhere shoved a yelling protester into a car.
Protesters dragged rubbish bins from alleyways to block the streets, and people who gathered chanted, “Ice out now”, referring to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
“They’re killing my neighbours!” Minneapolis resident Josh Koskie said.
Federal officers wielded batons and deployed flash bangs on the crowd.
The intersection where the shooting took place was blocked off, and Border Patrol agents were on the scene wielding batons.
The shooting happened a day after thousands of demonstrators protesting against the crackdown on immigrants crowded the city’s streets in frigid weather, calling for federal law enforcement to leave.
Mr Trump posted a long statement about the shooting on his Truth Social account, in part accusing the city’s mayor and the governor of “inciting insurrection”.
“The Mayor and the Governor are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric!” he wrote.
“Instead, these sanctimonious political fools should be looking for the Billions of Dollars that has been stolen from the people of Minnesota, and the United States of America.
“LET OUR ICE PATRIOTS DO THEIR JOB! 12,000 Illegal Alien Criminals, many of them violent, have been arrested and taken out of Minnesota. If they were still there, you would see something far worse than you are witnessing today!”
