The death of a man in a confrontation with US immigration agents over the weekend gave new impetus to the internal political instability caused by the hard-line immigration policy of the Donald Trump government.
Nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was killed by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Saturday on a Minneapolis street, after being pinned down while filming the agents’ actions with his cell phone during a protest.
Since the death, the second involving ICE operations in the city in less than a month, different versions of the episode have emerged. President Donald Trump said Sunday that the incident is being investigated.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that the incident occurred on Saturday morning near the intersection of West 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. Federal authorities allege they were conducting a targeted operation against a person who was in the country illegally when an individual approached Border Patrol agents carrying a semi-automatic pistol.
Upon identifying the threat, Border Patrol agents tried to disarm the man, according to the DHS version, but he resisted violently, which generated a reaction from authorities under the argument of “self-defense.”
DHS authorities also say the man was carrying two chargers and did not have identification documents. They claim that everything indicates that the man “wanted to cause maximum damage and massacre law enforcement officers.”
In addition to the government’s allegations against the nurse, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino also gave details of the episode, but did not confirm whether the man pulled a gun on the agents or where the gun was when Pretti was shot.
Videos recorded by witnesses and verified by CNN and The Wall Street Journal at the time of the shooting also dispute the protester’s threat claim by not showing the nurse holding a gun. The nurse had a cell phone in hand when he tried to intervene when agents approached other protesters.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara added that Pretti was a legal gun holder, an American citizen and lived in Minneapolis.
The facts that happened before the nurse’s death still need clarification. In a statement released on
The nurse’s death sparked new protests across the US, with outbreaks in New York, Washington and California.
Trump announced this Monday (26) that he will send Tom Homan, known as his “border czar”, to Minnesota in the next few hours.
“I will be sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight. He has no experience in that region, but he knows and likes many of the people there. Tom is strict but fair and will report directly to me,” the president wrote in Truth Social.
