DHS Report Details Border Agents Firing in Minneapolis Nurse Alex Pretti Death

A preliminary Department of Homeland Security report sent to Congress said two federal Customs and Border Protection officers fired their weapons in the Jan. 24 killing of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, during an immigration enforcement operation in south Minneapolis. The disclosure came as state officials, members of Congress and civil-rights groups pressed for an independent investigation and a federal judge ordered DHS not to destroy or alter evidence in the politically explosive case nytimes +2.

CBP’s internal review said agents moved to arrest Pretti after he “resisted” during a street confrontation, a Border Patrol agent repeatedly shouted “He’s got a gun!” and roughly five seconds later a Border Patrol agent and a CBP officer opened fire using their service pistols cnn. The report noted that after the shooting an agent stated he had taken possession of Pretti’s firearm and that agents “cleared and secured” the gun in Pretti’s vehicle, a handling that has drawn sharp scrutiny from state investigators concerned about the chain of custody cnn +1.

DHS Narrative vs. Video Evidence

The preliminary DHS account contrasted with the department’s initial public statement, which claimed Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and “reacted violently” when they tried to disarm him abcnews. Multiple bystander videos, however, appeared to show Pretti initially holding a cellphone, not a gun, as agents advanced, deployed pepper spray and wrestled him to the ground before the firearm appears in the struggle and a volley of at least 10 shots is fired within seconds, according to a visual analysis by The New York Times cbsnews +1.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said “every indication” was that Pretti was legally armed with a permit and was at the scene exercising his First Amendment rights, underscoring tensions between local authorities and federal agencies over both the tactics used and the justification for deadly force bbc. Civil-rights organizations including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund condemned what they called an “egregious killing” and argued that DHS officials’ early statements sought to criminalize a protesting U.S. citizen shot by his own government pbs.

Evidence Fight and Political Fallout

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty went to federal court within a day of the shooting, alleging “serious irregularities” in how agents secured the scene and evidence and warning that state investigators had been blocked from full access abcnews +1. U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order requiring DHS components to preserve body-camera footage, physical evidence and records from the operation, effectively freezing any unilateral federal moves to control the evidentiary record ms.

As anger mounted over Pretti’s death and an earlier fatal encounter between immigration agents and Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis this month, President Donald Trump dispatched “border czar” Tom Homan to meet with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and oversee a partial pullback of Border Patrol units, while Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino was removed from his Minneapolis role cnn +1. Yet the Justice Department has declined to open a civil-rights probe, prompting rare bipartisan calls in Congress for a fuller inquiry and deepening doubts among critics about DHS’s ability to investigate its own agents washingtonpost +1.

The Bigger Picture

The Pretti shooting has become a flashpoint over the reach and accountability of federal immigration forces operating inside U.S. cities, crystallizing questions about when armed protest, lawful gun ownership and aggressive federal tactics collide. With DHS, state authorities and Congress all now probing the same deadly encounter—but DOJ on the sidelines—the outcome may shape not only the futures of the agents involved, but also who ultimately polices federal law enforcement when fatal force is used on American streets.

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