Alex Pretti remembered as kind, competent and quiet
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Alex Pretti’s neighbors and colleagues expressed shock Saturday upon learning that a federal immigration agent had shot and killed him on the streets of Minneapolis.
“He was a calm person; he's a nurse,” said Jeanne Wiener, who lived next door to Pretti and would chat with him over the fence when he was walking his dog around their Lyndale neighborhood. “I'm shocked. I'm mad. I'm angry. This was a good person. This is not a violent person.”
Dr. Dimitri Drekonja worked at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center with Pretti, 37, who was a registered nurse in the intensive care unit.
“He was an incredibly competent person. He was incredibly good at his job,” Drekonja said, describing Pretti as a sweet, kind man who loved mountain biking and the outdoors. “There is no reason for a guy like that to be dead, let alone to be killed by the agents of a government that employed him.”
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Pretti’s only contact with the criminal justice system in Minnesota appears to be a speeding ticket and a parking violation. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference that Pretti had a permit to legally carry a gun.
The Department of Homeland Security released a photo of a handgun it said Pretti was carrying at the time he was shot, claiming he had “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers” with the weapon and portraying him as someone who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Videos taken at the scene appear to contradict the federal government’s description of what happened. They show no indication that Pretti brandished the weapon. To the contrary, Pretti appeared to be holding a cell phone and filming agents with it.
An immigration agent then shoved a person next to Pretti to the ground, and pepper sprayed Pretti as he appeared to try to help the person stand up. Agents pulled the two of them apart, and video showed Pretti on his hands and knees while a group of agents appeared to be trying to place him under arrest. During the struggle an agent unholstered his weapon and fired it repeatedly at point blank range.
The misleading federal narrative belied by eyewitness video was reminiscent of the government’s statements following the shooting of the Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis on January 7. DHS portrayed the mother of three as a “domestic terrorist.”
Pretti was a U.S. citizen. He grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin and was involved in the theater program and a vocal quartet at Preble High School, where he graduated with honors, according to archival articles from the Green Bay Press Gazette.
The Associated Press reported he graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2011 and worked as a research scientist before getting his nursing license in 2021. His name appears on research related to the delivery of medical treatments for infections and cancer.
He had a brief, two-year marriage, which ended in 2023. His ex-wife, Rachel Canoun, told the AP that Pretti had participated in the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. His father, Michael Pretti, told the AP that his son had also protested Macklin Good’s killing.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” Michael Pretti said to the AP, adding that he warned his son “go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically. … He knew that.”
Ellie Roth, Kate Martin, Jennifer Lu, Cari Spencer, Molly Castle Work and Curtis Gilbert contributed to this report.
