{"id":553465,"date":"2026-01-30T07:47:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/553465\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:47:23","slug":"vigil-for-alex-pretti-ice-shooting-victim-draws-huge-crowd-at-manhattans-va-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/553465\/","title":{"rendered":"Vigil for Alex Pretti, ICE shooting victim, draws huge crowd at Manhattan\u2019s VA Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of New Yorkers, including a large contingent of nurses, gathered outside the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Manhattan for a vigil for Alex Pretti, the second person to be gunned down by federal agents<\/a> amid the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

The massive crowd \u2014 estimated at up to 2,000 people \u2014 gathered outside the VA NY Harbor Healthcare System on E. 23rd St. near First Ave. in Kips Bay around 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople attend a vigil and memorial for Alex Pretti outside the Manhattan VA Hospital on Thursday, January 29, 2026, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Members of the crowd lit candles and carried signs that read, \u201cJustice for Alex Pretti,\u201d \u201cLove melts ICE\u201d and \u201cAbolish ICE.\u201d A statement by Pretti\u2019s parents was read aloud.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fianc\u00e9, my mother and my two best friends are nurses. I\u2019m here to support my heroes,\u201d Rita Wade, a 39-year-old executive assistant from Queens, told a Daily News reporter at the vigil. \u201cAfter COVID, nurses were heroes. And now one of them has been shot down on the streets of Minnesota. I\u2019m here to support my heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople attend a vigil and memorial for Alex Pretti outside the Manhattan VA Hospital on Thursday, January 29, 2026, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was gunned down by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cNurses support nurses,\u201d said 25-year-old Ana Gleson, an ICU Nurse living in Harlem, who was raised in Minnesota. \u201cAlex was a clear representative of who and what we are. He was a nurse up until the last moments of his life. His last words were, \u2018Are you OK?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople attend a vigil and memorial for Alex Pretti outside the Manhattan VA Hospital on Thursday, January 29, 2026, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Video from the scene<\/a> showed Pretti trying to assist a woman after an ICE agent shoved her to the ground. He was then pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the pavement by several agents, one of them removing a gun from Pretti\u2019s waistband<\/a>, before two agents opened fire on him.<\/p>\n

Though video shows that Pretti did not reach for his weapon, federal officials sought to portray Pretti as intent on killing federal agents<\/a>, with\u00a0Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin saying it \u201clooks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are committing heinous crimes, and we\u2019re told not to believe what we see,\u201d Brooklyn resident Manny Miravete, 51, said at the vigil. \u201cIt\u2019s just devastating. We\u2019re coming together as a community to fight hopelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of New Yorkers, including a large contingent of nurses, gathered outside the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":553466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2451,3059,5295,1370,728,5249,405,403,5294,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,5293,5321,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-553465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115982950215617226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}