Protests grow after man shot and killed during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
The man was identified by his parents as Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care unit nurse.
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.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the man was shot amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
He was identified by his parents as Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care unit nurse.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian 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 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 Mr Pretti is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said.
Family members said Mr Pretti was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Good in the city on January 7.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with Ice, as millions of other people are upset,” said his father Michael Pretti.
“He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
Mr Pretti was a US citizen who, like Ms Good, court records showed he had no criminal record.
In a statement issued later on Saturday Mr Walz called immigration enforcement “organised brutality”.
“The federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed yet another life,” Mr Walz said.
He said the state, and not the federal government, will lead the investigation into the death of Mr Pretti.
“Minnesotans and our local law enforcement have done everything we can to de-escalate. The federal government must de-escalate. I once again call on the president to remove the 3,000 agents from Minnesota who are sowing chaos and violence.”
The shooting happened amid widespread daily protests in the Twin Cities – Minneapolis and St Paul – since the shooting of Ms 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.
Several bystander videos of the shooting emerged soon afterwards. Mr Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand but none appears to show him with a visible weapon.
One 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 his 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!”
Vice President JD Vance responded to the shooting in a post on X and said that when he visited Minneapolis this week, “what the ICE agents wanted more than anything was to work with local law enforcement so that situations on the ground didn’t get out of hand.”
He accused local officials in Minnesota of ignoring requests from ICE agents to work with them. Federal officials refused to co-operate with local officials on an investigation into the shooting death of Renee Good.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was born and raised in Minnesota, posted on X to thank God for the “patriots” who work for Ice and said “we have your back 100%”.
The Pentagon chief added: “Shame on the leadership of Minnesota — and the lunatics in the street. ICE MN.”
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the US House Homeland Security Committee, called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached and denounced statements from the administration about the man DHS agents killed.
“Apparently, the Trump administration and its secret police only support the First and Second Amendments when it’s convenient to them,” Mr Thompson said in a statement.
Mr Thompson called on Democrats in the Senate to vote against a funding bill for DHS that passed the lower chamber last week.
“This is un-American and has to stop,” Mr Thompson said. “The House must immediately take steps to impeach Kristi Noem.”
