The state of Minnesota remains locked in a bitter dispute with the White House and federal law enforcement agencies over wildly conflicting accounts and interpretations of the killing in Minneapolis of a nurse by immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) agents.
Despite a mammoth snowstorm sweeping across the United States, protests and vigils took place in San Francisco, New York, Washington and Los Angeles in the hours after Alex Pretti was shot dead during a street struggle on Saturday.
The 37-year-old lived locally and worked as an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital.
Videos verified by The New York Times appear to contradict the US Department of Homeland Security’s account of the shooting. Video: Reuters/Irish Times
The fatal incident was captured by video footage from multiple angles which contradicts assertions by Kristi Noem, secretary for the department of Homeland Security, and other leading officials in US president Donald Trump’s administration, that Mr Pretti had been “brandishing a weapon”.
A gun, which he was legally carrying, was removed during a struggle with several Ice agents seconds before he was shot, while prone, several times. Mr Pretti had come to assist another protester, who had been pushed to the ground by an agent, seconds before the fatal incident.
FBI director Kash Patel on Sunday insisted that Mr Pretti had been the aggressor. “You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without repercussions.”
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander-at-large, was equally unrepentant when asked why Mr Pretti had been killed for exercising his first amendment right to protest and second amendment right to bear arms.
“I believe that all citizens of the United States have those first and fourth amendment rights as long as they do so peacefully and don’t delay, obstruct or assault anyone in doing that. And that’s the issue here because he was not peacefully doing anything.”
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent accused Minnesota Democratic governor Tim Walz of escalating civic unrest and suggested paid agitators were confronting immigration agents and “ginning things up”.
Federal agents use tear gas as they confront protesters in Minneapolis. Photograph: New York Times
However, the video footage of the shooting has caused widespread shock and follows on from the highly criticised fatal shooting of Renee Good (37) in her car in Minneapolis on January 7th.
Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy has been the most senior Republican figure to break from the official White House response. He said the “events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing” and that “the credibility of Ice and the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] are at stake”. He called for a joint federal and state investigation into Mr Pretti’s death.
Minority Senate leader Chuck Schumer said he would be voting against an upcoming bipartisan funding measure if it included the proposed allocation for the DHS.
The breakdown in state and federal trust was reflected in a decision by a US district judge to grant a request from Hennepin County prosecutors in Minneapolis to prevent DHS and other agencies from altering evidence relating to Mr Pretti’s death.
The Trump administration is adamant that its immigration agents are coming under severe provocation in Minneapolis while trying to fulfil an election pledge to apprehend and deport undocumented people and make US cities safer.
The council of criminal justice last week released a study confirming that the murder rate across 35 cities analysed had fallen to its lowest rate since 1900.
Connecticut senator Chris Murphy warned on Sunday that the flooding of Minneapolis with some 3,000 immigration agents had little to with undocumented immigrants.
“They are there to cause a conflict. They are there to create mayhem. And it isn’t going to be just isolated to Minneapolis,” he said. “As they continue to staff up with officers who are not trained for this kind of work, this is going to be in Philadelphia, this is going to be in Phoenix. This is coming to your city as well.
“So, if we don’t stop this in its tracks, what you are seeing in Minnesota – people being killed for exercising their first amendment rights is going to be a regular feature. That is dystopian. We shouldn’t allow for it.”
Former US president Barack Obama called Mr Pretti’s death “heartbreaking” and warned that “many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault”.
He urged the administration to work with city and state officials “to avert more chaos and achieve legitimate law enforcement goals … This has to stop.”