President Donald Trump has labeled Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist,” in a post on Truth Social early Friday.
“Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump continued in his post. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
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The President appeared to be referring to footage published by digital news outlet the News Movement and analyzed by BBC News. In the video, a man who appears to be Pretti is seen on Jan. 13 screaming at federal immigration agents and then spitting at and kicking in the taillight of their vehicle as they drove away, after which the agents in tactical gear exited their vehicle and tackled the man to the ground and sprayed chemical irritants at surrounding onlookers. Moments later, the agents released the man and retreated.
The Minnesota Star Tribune published on Thursday another video showing a different angle of the same incident, and Pretti’s family confirmed to the newspaper that the man was Pretti. CNN had reported Tuesday that Pretti was involved in an altercation with federal agents in which he had broken a rib over a week before he was shot; the Department of Homeland Security told the outlet that it had “no record of this incident.”
Trump’s remarks about Pretti come after his Administration initially after Pretti’s killing portrayed Pretti as a security threat and domestic terrorist, including alleging that he had intended to “massacre law enforcement.” Pretti had a handgun but video footage showed that he was not holding it at the time he was restrained and fatally shot by federal agents.
Pretti’s family called the allegations “sickening lies” and described Pretti as a “kindhearted soul,” “good man,” and “hero.”
As public anger mounted, including growing frustration from even within the Republican Party, Trump promised that his Administration was “reviewing everything” to do with the incident.
About video of Pretti’s earlier encounter with federal agents, a lawyer representing Pretti’s family told the Associated Press in a statement: “A week before Alex was gunned down in the street—despite posing no threat to anyone—he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents,” and “Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24.”