Two agents placed on administrative leave as outrage continues over fatal shooting of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti during immigration raid.
Two United States federal agents involved in the fatal shooting of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti during an immigration raid in Minneapolis have been placed on administrative leave, as fallout from the most recent killing of a US citizen continues to cause outrage.
The two officers have been on leave since Saturday, in what US officials said on Wednesday was “standard protocol”, when Pretti was shot multiple times after being forced to the ground by masked immigration officers in an altercation that quickly turned deadly and was captured on video.
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“The two officers involved are on administrative leave and have been since Saturday,” Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo said, reading from a statement from a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) spokesperson on Wednesday.
Rapalo, reporting from Minneapolis, said that it was “unclear whether or not the Department of Homeland Security has taken any sort of additional actions against the other officers who were involved in that fatal shooting”, referring to agents “seen in multiple videos helping to restrain Alex Pretti in the moments before that fatal shooting took place”.
US media, citing a preliminary investigation sent to members of the US Congress, report that a US Border Patrol agent initially opened fire on Pretti while he was on the ground, followed by a CBP officer, who also fired.
The killing of Pretti has been widely condemned across the political aisle despite initial efforts by officials from the administration of President Donald Trump to justify the killing and paint the victim as being to blame.
Pretti’s shooting followed the January 7 killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good, a mother of three who was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
In a bid to stem the political and public backlash over the violence by federal officers in Minnesota, President Trump has shuffled the leadership of immigration agents deployed in Minneapolis.
He replaced Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol official whose aggressive tactics in Minnesota have drawn widespread criticism, with his policy-focused border immigration chief Tom Homan.
But Trump’s signals have been mixed regarding the ongoing immigration raids in Minneapolis.
After stating on Tuesday that he wanted to “de-escalate” the spiralling crisis in the state, Trump on Wednesday warned Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey that he was “playing with fire” after Frey reiterated that his city would not help federal agents enforce immigration law.
Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!”
Responding to the president, Frey wrote on social media, “The job of our police is to keep people safe, not enforce [federal] immigration laws.”
Amid the mixed messaging from Trump, tensions remain high on the streets of Minneapolis, where observers said immigration raids had not slowed but appeared to be more targeted.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, a high-ranking member of Trump’s administration, was in Minneapolis on Wednesday, where she announced the arrests of 16 Minnesota “rioters” for allegedly assaulting federal law enforcement.
Trump has sent thousands of federal officers to the city of Minneapolis and the surrounding state of Minnesota as part of the president’s aggressive deportation policy.
“Community members are afraid to go out as a result of the occupation in our city by ICE,” US Congresswoman for Minnesota Ilhan Omar said.
“Not only is the federal occupation hurting businesses, the president’s reprehensible rhetoric has led right-wing grifters to show up here to terrorise our community. It is indefensible,” she said, warning that “constitutional rights are being crumpled” as “fear is being weaponised”.
The parents of Pretti have retained a former federal prosecutor who helped Minnesota’s attorney general convict a police officer of murder for kneeling on the neck of African American man George Floyd, and whose killing by white officer Derek Chauvin in 2020 ignited the global Black Lives Matter protests.
Steve Schleicher is representing Michael and Susan Pretti pro bono, according to a family spokesman.
Renee Good’s family has hired the Chicago-based firm Romanucci & Blandin, which previously represented George Floyd’s family.