Sunday, January 25, 2026
■ Today's Top News
"This is blackmail. This is the way organized crime works."
By Julia Conley
As Minnesota residents and people across the US were reeling from the killing of protester Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents on Saturday—the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in the city in less than three weeks—US Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz, telling him it is in his power to “restore the rule of law” in his state.
One suggestion the attorney general gave amounted to a “shakedown,” said US Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and had nothing to do with the Trump administration’s persistent claims that immigrants have caused a crisis in Minnesota. Bondi demanded the Democratic governor turn over voter rolls for the state, as she has called on all 50 states and Washington, DC to do, prompting legal challenges from voting rights groups and voters.
Bondi wrote that Walz must allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to access voter rolls to “confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”
“Fulfilling this commonsense request will better guarantee free and fair elections and boost confidence in the rule of law,” she wrote.
Gallego accused the DOJ of “using fear to get their hands on voter information.”
The Trump administration filed a federal lawsuit last September against Minnesota and several other Democrat-governed states to demand personal information for all voters, including driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
Considering President Donald Trump’s persistent, debunked claims of so-called “voter fraud” in the 2020 election, including the baseless claim that noncitizens are permitted by Democratic governors to vote in federal elections, advocates have said the DOJ’s demands for voter rolls are aimed at further spreading lies and misinformation.
In the letter, Bondi also denounced Minnesota officials for speaking out against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the wake of an ICE agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good earlier this month, saying a “national tragedy” has resulted from the “anti-law enforcement rhetoric.”
The “tragedy” the attorney general was referring to wasn’t the killings of Good and Pretti, but a rise in “violence against ICE officers and agents” that the Trump administration has cited frequently. She didn’t provide examples of violent attacks in the letter.
She also demanded that Walz turn over records on Medicaid and food assistance programs and “repeal sanctuary policies that have led to so much crime and violence in your state”—also providing no evidence of such a rise. According to data from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Minneapolis Police Department, crime has gone down in recent years.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Bondi’s letter suggested that Minnesota can expect more violence from federal immigration officers unless Walz turns over his constituents’ sensitive data.
“They’re not entitled to that data,” said Fontes. “This is blackmail. This is the way organized crime works. They move into your neighborhood, they start beating everybody up, and then they extort what they want. This is not how America is supposed to work, and I’m embarrassed that the administration is pushing in this direction.”
Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, noted that Bondi’s demand came days after the DOJ acknowledged that a group aimed at challenging election results reached out to two Department of Government Efficiency Employees who were working at the Social Security Administration and requested they analyze state voter rolls.
“This is not a coincidence,” said D’Arrigo. “Authoritarians crave legitimacy, and manipulated election results can provide that.”
"Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump's murdering and cowardly thugs," said Michael and Susan Pretti.
By Julia Conley
Michael and Susan Pretti urged the press and the public to counter the Trump administration’s baseless claims about their son, Alex Pretti, after he was fatally shot by US Border Patrol agents on a street in Minneapolis and immediately—with no evidence—declared a “domestic terrorist” by top White House officials.
Pretti’s parents expressed heartbreak as well as anger over their son’s killing, which no federal officials contacted the family about, leaving them to learn he had been fatally shot from an Associated Press reporter who reached out to them.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital,” said the Pretti family. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.”
They emphasized that Pretti acted as a “hero” in his final moments, moving to help a woman who had just been forcefully pushed to the ground by a federal agent.
“His last thought and act was to protect a woman,” they said before directly disputing claims by officials including White House Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who have made claims that are contradicted by multiple videos of the shooting.
In addition to labeling Pretti a “domestic terrorist”—a claim likely stemming from a memo signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, which claims that acts of domestic terrorism include “impeding” or “doxing” law enforcement officers even though filming federal agents is a constitutional right—officials have claimed he “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and wanted to inflict “maximum damage” on the agents.
Bovino on Saturday refused to answer a direct question about when Pretti approached the officers with a weapon; videos show him holding a phone, not the firearm he was legally permitted to carry in a holster, and approaching the woman who was pushed to the ground. The agents then pushed him to ground and surrounded him before one reached into the fray and took Pretti’s gun just before at least one officer fired roughly 10 shots, killing him. Despite the fact that Pretti had just been disarmed and was on the ground, officials have called the shooting “defensive.”
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” said Michael and Susan Pretti. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by [President Donald] Trump’s murdering and cowardly thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.”
“Please get the truth out about our son,” the Pretti family concluded. “He was a good man.”
Pretti had no criminal record. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, society, and the environment from University of Minnesota in 2011 and worked as a research scientist before going back to school to become a registered nurse.
Pretti’s father added in comments to the AP that his son “was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” and had exercised his First Amendment right to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s mass deportation and detention campaign and an ICE agent’s killing of Renee Good earlier this month.
“He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street,” said his father. “He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
After the fatal shooting, the son of a deceased veteran whom Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital posted a video of him reading a “final salute” for his father.
“My father’s final words to me were, ‘Continue to fight the good fight,” wrote the man. “He would be honored in Alex’s sacrifice, and ashamed of this current administration. In my dad’s words I encourage you all to continue to ‘fight the good fight.’”
The AP reported that as of Saturday night, Pretti’s family still had not heard from federal officials about their son’s killing.
"Either the American people are able to wrest power from the current fascist leaders or those leaders will continue to radicalize, using violence and terror to dismantle democracy."
By Julia Conley
As hundreds of Minneapolis residents assembled in Whittier Park Saturday evening to demand once again that federal immigration agents leave Minnesota following the second fatal shooting of a legal observer in less than three weeks, one speaker demanded that the gathering must not simply be “another damn vigil.”
“This is a turning point,” said Edwin Torres DeSantiago of the Immigrant Defense Network.
He spoke to the crowd hours after several federal officers were filmed surrounding Alex Pretti, 37, after he attempted to help a woman one of them had pushed to the ground, and fatally shooting him.
Torres DeSantiago’s words were echoed by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, which did not mince words about the agents of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection who have for months roamed the streets of cities including Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles, arresting immigrants and US citizens and opening fire nearly two dozen times—killing at least six people including Pretti.
The federal agents recruited by the Trump administration with flyers imploring them to choose between their “homeland” and an “invasion,” said the Lemkin Institute, “are loyal agents of Nazis and white supremacists within the Republican Party. They are behaving as enemies both of the Constitution and of the American people and they must be treated as such.”
“The United States is at a crossroads: Either the American people are able to wrest power from the current fascist leaders or those leaders will continue to radicalize, using violence and terror to dismantle democracy and commit even greater mass atrocities,” said the organization. “History is clear about this.”
The warning came as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would be investigating the shooting involving its own officers instead of the FBI. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said DHS representatives had blocked them from accessing the crime scene late Saturday, even though officials had obtained a judicial search warrant.
The bureau joined the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in filing a lawsuit to prevent the “destruction of evidence” by DHS.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to order the city’s police department to “take control of the scene of the latest deadly ICE shooting, launch an independent criminal probe, and protect peaceful protesters at the scene from ICE violence.”
“Calling for ICE to leave is not enough. This shooting happened on a city street in the jurisdiction of the Minneapolis law enforcement and they must lead an independent investigation into what appears to be another horrific, unnecessary execution of a Minneapolis resident,” said Mitchell. “ICE should immediately end its deadly and disastrous siege of Minnesota and turn over all evidence and information about this shooting and the prior shooting of Renee Good to local authorities.”
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials continued pushing a narrative which was contradicted by numerous videos of the shooting and the moments leading up to it, claiming Pretti had “approached” federal agents with a gun. Footage shows Pretti holding only a phone, not a firearm, and one of agents involved in wrestling him to the ground after he was pepper-sprayed reaches into the scuffle empty-handed and then pulls out a gun before the multiple shots were fired.
Pretti was armed with a gun that he was carrying lawfully and had a permit for, local authorities said.
Despite the video evidence, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeated almost verbatim the claim she made earlier this month when an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in another incident that did not match the administration’s description in footage taken by bystanders: “Fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.”
Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff, said without any evidence soon after the shooting that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement,” and Trump called Pretti a “gunman.”
The shooting came days after seven Democrats in the US House joined Republicans in passing a funding bill for DHS without securing restrictions on ICE, despite growing national outrage over federal immigration agents’ operations and Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
The bill still needs to go through the Senate and is one of several funding measures that need to pass by January 30 to keep the government open.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement after Pretti was killed that “Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.”
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” said Schumer. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”
Democratic senators who had been expected to support the $64.4 billion in DHS funding, which includes $10 billion for ICE, said after the shooting that they would not do so.
“I cannot and will not vote to fund DHS while this administration continues these violent federal takeovers of our cities,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).
The footage of the fatal shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, said one journalist, "shows that the final act of his life was trying to help a woman who was being physically assaulted by the masked agents who would then kill him."
By Julia Conley
WARNING: The following article contains graphic video.
In the original video of the shooting of a man in Minneapolis, identified by the Minneapolis Star Tribune at 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a woman in a pink coat was seen in the background filming the incident with her phone.
Drop Site News obtained footage that appeared “to come from the direction of the woman in pink filming from the sidewalk” and showed the shooting at a closer distance than the footage taken from inside Glam Doll Donuts.
In the video, the shooting victim, dressed in a brown coat and pants, is seen filming a federal agent with his phone. He’s then seen guiding another person toward the sidewalk as the agent forcefully shoves a third person to the ground.
The agent appears to pepper-spray Pretti and pull him away from the other person as a group of several other officers approach and surround him.
They wrestle him to the ground and struggle with him for several seconds before he appears to try to get up. Roughly 10 gun shots ring out and Pretti falls to the ground.
“What the fuck did you do? What the fuck did you do?” yells the woman behind the camera repeatedly.
“Cowards,” said US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) in response to the footage.
The video, said journalist Susan Glasser, “shows that the final act of his life was trying to help a woman who was being physically assaulted by the masked agents who would then kill him.”
The video contradicted the Department of Homeland Security’s claim that Pretti had approached immigration officers with a gun.
In a press conference, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino doubled down on the assertion and claimed Pretti had aimed to “massacre” Border Patrol agents while they conducted operations, but then did not explain when the victim had threatened the officers with his gun.
“Why did... Commander Bovino only take two questions, then abruptly shut down the press conference?” asked US Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif). “Because he knows he can’t defend cold-blooded murder.”
The shooting took place a day after tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Minneapolis in the freezing cold to demand an end to President Donald Trump's mass deportation operation.
By Julia Conley
This is a developing story. Please check back for possible updates...
Update (1:00 pm ET):
Federal agents repeatedly tear-gassed a crowd of protesters that gathered near the site of the shooting. They also deployed pepper spray, including at a man who “either dropped or threw his sunglasses, which landed on the ground” as he was backing away from the officers. At least two flash-bang grenades were heard going off, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
The outlet reported that “several witnesses” had been “transported to the Whipple building,” a federal building where immigration agents have been working and which houses a detention center.
The Star Tribune also reported that “ICE attempted to order local police from the scene” but Police Chief Brian O’Hara refused and ordered his officers to preserve the crime scene.
Update (12:15 pm ET):
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara reported that the victim of the shooting was killed.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported that the man was armed with a firearm and two magazines.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin posted a photo on social media of a firearm, saying that DHS had told the outlet federal agents had recovered the gun.
DHS said the man “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun... The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots.”
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement that her office was working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which was blocked from the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent.
“The scene must be secured by local law enforcement for the collection and preservation of evidence,” Moriarty said. “We expect the federal government to allow the BCA to process the scene.”
Earlier:
Federal immigration agents reportedly shot another person in Minneapolis Saturday morning.
Local and federal officials were among those reporting the shooting on social media, where a video taken from inside Glam Doll Donuts at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue showed several agents beating a person on a sidewalk.
David J. Bier of the Cato Institute posted a video of another angle of the shooting, from the Minnesota outlet Bring Me the News.
Whistles were heard outside in the video as observers inside the store expressed shock at the beating, which happened weeks after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Good, and 10 days after an immigration officer shot a Venezuelan man in the leg during an enforcement operation.
“They’re doing too much, man,” one man was heard saying as the agents surrounded the person.
The person appeared to be trying to get up when an agent shot them.
“Oh shit,” another observer in the store said. “Did they fucking kill that guy?”
The person’s condition and details about what had occurred before the encounter was filmed were not immediately reported.
Around 100 protesters gathered at the site of the shooting soon after, chanting anti-ICE slogans, having learned about the incident through neighborhood rapid response networks set up across the city.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, called the incident “sickening” and repeated a demand for President Donald Trump to end his deployment of armed, masked federal agents in the state.
The shooting took place a day after tens of thousands of people filled Minneapolis’ streets demanding an end to Trump’s mass deportation operation.
The FBI has focused its investigation on Good's ties to activist groups as ICE agents have increasingly threatened people for filming and observing their operations.
By Julia Conley
A supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office became the latest official to resign over the federal law enforcement agency’s handling of the investigation into an immigration agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month.
As the New York Times reported Friday, FBI agent Tracee Mergen, acting supervisor of the office’s Public Corruption Squad, resigned after senior FBI officials in Washington pushed her to end a civil rights probe into the killing. The agency is focusing on investigating Good and her wife, who were legally observing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, instead of determining whether ICE agent Jonathan Ross used excessive force.
An FBI source told CBS News that Mergen “would not bow to pressure” from the agency’s leaders.
Starting immediately after Good was shot three times at close range by Ross, who was one of several agents who had approached her vehicle and, according to eyewitnesses, shouted conflicting orders at her, Trump administration officials have described Good and her wife as “domestic terrorists.” They have accused her of trying to run over Ross, a claim that has not been supported by detailed analysis of footage of the killing.
Federal prosecutors have refused to allow authorities in Minnesota to conduct a probe into the killing, and Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump administration’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, announced days after Good was killed that the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division would not be investigating—which would ordinarily be a standard step in a shooting involving a federal law enforcement agent. That decision led four top officials in Dhillon’s office to resign in protest.
Six federal prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Minnesota also stepped down after the DOJ made clear that Becca and Renee Good—not Ross—would be the focus of an investigation.
As NBC News reported Friday, the DOJ also directed the US attorney’s office and FBI agents to investigate whether Good could have been criminally liable in her own death. Agents had drafted a search warrant to obtain her car, but they were told by aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to redraft the warrant to search the car for evidence of an attack on Ross. A federal judge rejected the warrant.
Like many residents of Minneapolis, Chicago, and Charlotte, North Carolina have in recent months as thousands of ICE agents have descended on US cities and detained immigrants and citizens alike, the Goods were observing and filming ICE operations on January 7 when Renee Good was shot.
Filming ICE is legal as long as doing so does not interfere with agents’ operations. Yet officers have increasingly threatened people for observing them and claimed that doing so is an act of domestic terrorism.
One agent in Portland, Maine on Friday told an observer she would be included in a “nice little database” and “considered a domestic terrorist,” after she filmed ICE operations.
Volunteers for neighborhood ICE watches in Maine told the Portland Press Herald that ICE agents have shown up at their houses and issued warnings not to follow them.
The threats, and the FBI’s insistence on investigating Good’s alleged ties to what it calls “activist groups,” come months after Attorney General Pam Bondi signed a memo expanding the DOJ’s definition of domestic terrorism to include “impeding” law enforcement officers or “doxxing” them.
That memo followed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, a document signed by President Donald Trump shortly after the assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” The memo exclusively focuses on “anti-fascist” or left-wing activities.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include details about the DOJ push to investigate Good for criminal liability after her death.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.