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‘This has to stop’: Pretti shooting should be a ‘wake-up call to every American’ that core values are under assault, say Obamas
Former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama have called Alex Pretti’s killing a “heartbreaking tragedy”.
“It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault,” the couple said.
In a statement, the Obamas went on:
For weeks now, people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city.
They add that the Trump administration “seem eager to escalate the situation” and have tried to explain the shootings of Pretti and Renee Good without “any serious investigation – and that appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence”.
This has to stop.
Key events
Earlier this morning, Minneapolis officials said they had reopened streets in the area near where Alex Pretti was killed yesterday, and that “Minnesota National Guard assignments have also ended at the site”.
The city added in a news release that there “were no arrests or reports of burglaries or fires overnight, and activity remained overwhelmingly calm and peaceful”.
Kristi Noem has told Fox News that she has “grieved” for the parents of Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by a border patrol agent in Minneapolis yesterday.
I’m grieved for them. I truly am. I can’t even imagine losing a child. And I can’t imagine a tragic situation.
The homeland security secretary then proceeded to place blame on Pretti for having a concealed weapon and for “confronting” officers. A reminder that, as we’ve been reporting, Pretti had a concealed carry permit and video footage of the incident does not show him brandishing the weapon at officers. Conversely, videos show Pretti was holding a phone, and was disarmed before he was fatally shot.
Without evidence, Noem told Fox News:
We can’t have individuals that are impeding law enforcement operations and then showing up with guns and weapons and no ID and confronting law enforcement, like, that is one of the reasons that we see situations like this unfold.
Asked about first amendment rights, Noem said individuals should comply with officers who tell them to “back off”, and added, without providing any evidence that Pretti had behaved in the obstructive manner described:
When an officer tells you to back off and gives you orders you should comply and explain you shouldn’t show up with weapons that no ID and no indication of how they’re going to be used, and that aggressive interaction, laying hands on law enforcement officers, clearly, is a crime, and it is something that should not be acceptable.
Further to my earlier post about the handful of Republicans expressing growing concern about “federal tactics and accountability” in Minnesota, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has urged Americans across the political spectrum to “take off their political blinders”.
The former Trump loyalist took to X to suggest that had the victim of the Minneapolis shooting had been a “MAGA guy” in the Biden era, those in the movement would be outraged.
“Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm,” she wrote, adding: “There is nothing wrong with legally peacefully protesting and videoing.”
Greene resigned from the House earlier this month after a dramatic falling out with Trump, who labelled her a “traitor”.
“You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying,” she wrote.
NRA and pro-gun groups call for ‘full investigation’ into killing of Alex Pretti
Michael Sainato
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has joined other gun lobbying and advocacy groups that are typically aligned with Donald Trump in calling for the Republican president’s administration to conduct a “full investigation” into the killing of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse who was shot dead by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis yesterday.
Pretti was reportedly legally permitted to carry a gun and is a citizen of the US, where it is a constitutional right to bear arms. Widely circulated video of his shooting death does not depict Pretti ever holding a gun. It does show an officer reaching to Petti’s lower back and stepping away with what appeared to be a pistol – and Petti being subsequently shot to death.
The NRA waded into the national dialogue over Pretti’s killing after Bill Essayli – who was appointed by Trump to temporarily serve as a US attorney in California in 2025 – posted on social media: “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.”
In response, the NRA posted:
This sentiment … is dangerous and wrong. Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.
As we reported earlier, Gun Owners of America, a non-profit lobbying organization, also criticized that claim from Essayli – who is now an acting first assistant US attorney for California’s central federal district court.
“Federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm,” the group posted. It added that the US constitution’s second amendment “protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting – a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”
California governor Gavin Newsom’s press office responded to the NRA’s criticism of Essayli, saying on social media, “Wow. Even the NRA thinks Trump’s [justice department] stooge in California has gone too far for claiming federal agents were ‘legally justified’ to kill Alex Pretti.”
Newsom’s press office added:
Your position is truly horrible when even the NRA calls you out.
Here’s the full report:
Organizers in Minnesota have encouraged “hyper local gatherings” with the people they see regularly to gather in dispersed places, as opposed to thousands gathering and making for an easier and bigger “target for ICE”.
One local man has shared with my colleague Jana that he and his neighbors have been gathering in front of their house where there is a park with public art, as they do during summer block gatherings, bringing candles and flashlights with them as they sing together for peace.
A handful of Republicans have expressed growing concern this morning about the tactics that federal immigration officials are using in Minnesota after a US border patrol agent fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis yesterday.
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt said the killing of the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse was a “real tragedy”. He told CNN earlier:
I think the death of Americans, what we’re seeing on TV, it’s causing deep concerns over federal tactics and accountability. Americans don’t like what they’re seeing right now.
Asked if he thought the president should pull immigration agents from Minnesota, Stitt said Trump has to answer that question, adding:
He’s getting bad advice right now.
The governor said the Republican president needed to tell the American people what the solution and “endgame” are, and that there needed to be solutions instead of politicizing the situation.
Right now, tempers are just going crazy and we need to calm this down.
North Carolina senator Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, also conveyed unease.
In a social media post, Cassidy called the shooting “incredibly disturbing” and that the “credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake”. He called for a “full joint federal and state investigation”.
Tillis urged a “thorough and impartial investigation”, posting:
Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.
Representative Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, also defended the carrying of a gun as a “constitutional right”, following the administration’s claim that Pretti was armed when he was shot dead by federal agents yesterday.
“Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right,” Massie said in a post on X.
‘The videos speak for themselves,’ says Minneapolis police chief
Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara has been speaking to CBS News this morning, saying that he has received no cooperation or official information from the federal government related to yesterday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, and that federal agents had blocked his officers and members of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension following the killing.
Even when our officers initially responded to the scene, our watch commander was not given even the most basic information that is typical in a law enforcement-involved shooting just to ensure that there is potentially no other victims.
Since then, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension responded to the scene at my request. They were blocked from the scene yesterday, but they have since returned to the scene and are now canvassing for additional witnesses and evidence that may be there.
He also said that video footage of the incident raised “serious questions” about the account provided by Greg Bovino. “The videos speak for themselves,” he said, adding that Pretti lawfully owned his handgun and “did not violate” the state’s gun laws.
O’Hara said Pretti appeared to be “exercising his first amendment rights to record law enforcement activity, and also exercising his second amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city”.
I think it’s deeply concerning the things that are being said. This is an individual that was a city resident. It appears that he was present exercising his first amendment rights to record law enforcement activity and also exercising his second amendment rights to lawfully be armed in a public space in the city.
So I think very obviously there are serious questions that are being raised, and I think the greater issue is, even if there is an investigation that ultimately proves that at the time of the shooting it was legally justified, I don’t think that even matters at this point because there’s just, there is so much outrage and concern around what is happening in the city.
FBI analyzing gun Alex Pretti was allegedly carrying, says Patel
FBI director Kash Patel has given an interview to Fox News in which he suggested that Alex Pretti had broken the law by carrying the gun that he had a legal permit to carry, and provided no evidence to support the Trump administration’s claims that Pretti posed a threat to federal officers.
“You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple,” Patel said. “You don’t have that right to break the law and incite violence.”
Readers will not need reminding that Republicans generally celebrate the right to possess firearms as enshrined in the constitution.
Indeed, assertions like that from the administration has received fierce pushback from gun rights groups such as Gun Owners of America, which said in a statement after the shooting saying that “the second amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting — a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”
And, again, video footage of the incident directly contradicts the Trump administration’s suggestions that Pretti was inciting violence, and show that he was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was killed.
Asked several times about what evidence there is to demonstrate that Pretti was allegedly using the gun or threatening the agents, or whether the border patrol agents saw the gun before Pretti was killed, Patel said:
That’s something I’ll leave to the DHS and prosecutors … I don’t want to stylise that evidence.
He said the FBI was looking at the “physical evidence” from the scene, mainly the gun that Pretti was allegedly carrying, which is being analyzed for fingerprints and DNA, how many times it may have been fired, and looking at shell casings from the scene, Patel said.
Bondi demands access to Minnesota voter rolls in return for pulling ICE out of the state
Further to that, in a letter sent to Tim Walz hours after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, which was obtained by multiple outlets, attorney general Pam Bondi outlined terms to “restore the rule of law” in Minnesota – telling the governor that she would pull ICE out of the state if he turns over of its voter database.
“You and your office must restore the rule of law, support ICE officers, and bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote in the letter, putting the onus on Walz rather than the federal agents she oversees. “Fortunately, there are common sense solutions to these problems that I hope we can accomplish together.”
Bondi goes on to press the Democratic governor to hand over information about the state’s welfare programs (including Medicaid and SNAP) to the federal government, repeal immigration sanctuary policies and give the Department of Justice access to the state’s voter rolls “to confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law”.
“I am confident that these simple steps will help bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans,” Bondi said in the letter.
