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The US deputy attorney general announced on Friday that the justice department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of the Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti last Saturday by immigration officers, as fierce protests continued on the streets there.
“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on that day,” Todd Blanche, deputy to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said at a press conference on Friday morning in Washington DC.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also said on Friday that the FBI would lead the investigation into the latest killing.
Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse at the military veterans hospital in Minneapolis and an activist, died while protesting against aggressive immigration raids and protester-control tactics by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), border patrol and other federal agencies.
He was the third person shot during the surge of immigration enforcement personnel sent to the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota by the Trump administration as part of its mass deportation agenda, and the second to die after Renee Good was shot dead on 7 January.
The justice department’s announcement on Friday was a significant development after the Trump administration had earlier indicated a much narrower examination by the DHS.
Blanche said the new plan was like “any investigation that the Department of Justice and the FBI does every day. It means we’re looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.” The justice department has not opened such an investigation into Good’s death.
Protesters have gathered daily across parts of the Twin Cities for weeks. Friday was no exception.
“The community is really rallied, and I think it’s important just to stand with them and have more people on the streets,” said Ann Pelsue, 58, who made the three-hour journey from Iron River, Wisconsin, to join demonstrators outside a federal building in a Minneapolis suburb where many people targeted in the immigration raids, as well as protesters and observers who monitor federal enforcement actions, are taken and held.
Meanwhile, the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the investigation into Pretti’s death during a Fox News interview on Thursday evening.
Noem also conceded that she may have gotten some information wrong in her initial response to Pretti’s shooting, when she held a press conference last Saturday and repeated allegations made by other officials that Pretti had been attacking officers – a narrative quickly and clearly contradicted by bystander video of him being shot as well as sworn witness testimony.
“We were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said in Thursday’s TV interview. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency includes border patrol, with both alongside ICE under the umbrella of the DHS.
Noem described to Fox a “very chaotic” situation, when the host asked whether her responses last Saturday had been “premature”.
But the Trump administration had rushed in to blame Pretti. Greg Bovino, then commander of border patrol’s operation who was moved out of Minneapolis days later, said the nurse wanted to “massacre” federal officers, and numerous officials, including Noem, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist”. The administration had also quickly mischaracterized the core of what happened when Good was shot, infuriating local leaders and many communities.
Noem has been facing calls to resign amid widespread and mounting outrage, even among some Republicans. The North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis told reporters that Noem’s conduct “should be disqualifying”.
Videos of Pretti’s shooting showed that he had his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground after he tried to shield a fellow protester and he did not appear to touch or reach for the gun he had a permit to carry.
Two other videos emerged this week of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.
The videos from 13 January show Pretti yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground.
Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said the earlier altercation in no way justified officers fatally shooting Pretti more than a week later.
In a stark post on his Truth Social platform early on Friday morning, Donald Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.
“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, 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 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,” the US president’s post said. It added: “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control.”
Later on Friday, protesters gathered outside the Bishop Henry Whipple building just south of Minneapolis, the federal building and holding center that has become the site of many demonstrations.
Dozens of people held up placards in Arctic temperatures, reading “ICE out now” and “Minnesota strong” while a chorus of whistles blared and cries of “shame” erupted when protesters spotted federal law enforcement enter the facility in their cars on Friday. Supporters set up stands, doling out hand warmers and energy bars to those braving the frigid weather to protest.
Yaakov Segal, 23, said he had been demonstrating outside the building “three or four times a week” since Good’s killing. “I don’t see any sign of slowing down. Minnesota has been showing up ever since they started taking their neighbors,” he said.
Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, was sent, over Noem’s head, to Minneapolis to replace Bovino earlier this week. Tim Walz, Minnesota governor, and Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis, both Democrats, have voiced public fury over the federal shootings and “invasion” by federal officials.
“Regardless of who is at the top right now, this is about the fact that you’re not following the rule of law,” said Caleb Dunnewind, 23, another protester, who lives just four blocks away from where Pretti was fatally shot, of federal officials’ conduct.
