Alex Pretti's parents, sister call for accountability, seven months after he was fatally shot by federal agents
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The family of Alex Pretti is renewing calls for answers and accountability — seven months after their son and brother was fatally shot by federal immigration agents on a street in south Minneapolis.
Pretti’s family — his parents, Susan and Michael Pretti, and his sister Micayla Pretti — spoke with ABC’s Good Morning America in an interview that aired Tuesday.
“We really want to get the facts out, of what happened to Alex that day,” Michael Pretti said. “I mean — we’ve seen what happened. The videos are pretty clear. But we want justice. We want accountability ... for the people that did this to Alex.”
Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA, was killed on Jan. 24 on Nicollet Avenue. He had been observing federal agents and was shot while coming to the aid of a woman who had been shoved to the ground by a federal agent.
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Susan Pretti said they found out Alex had been shot by watching videos of the shooting on TV.
“I was not shocked that he helped somebody,” she told Good Morning America. “My shock is that he was murdered, and no one has given us the complete truth, or anyone has been held accountable. And it’s been seven months.”
“There was more effort in vilifying him than pursuing justice, investigating this,” Michael Pretti said, referring to statements from federal officials in the wake of the shooting that referred to his son as a “domestic terrorist” or “would-be assassin,” among other labels.
Some officials initially claimed that Alex Pretti posed a threat to officers because he was armed. However, video from the incident doesn’t show him pointing the gun at agents during the confrontation. Pretti was a legal gun owner who had a permit to carry a firearm.
Alex Pretti’s parents and sister said they have not received — but still want — an apology from those federal officials.
An attorney for the family said they don’t know the status of a federal investigation into the shooting. Local and state agencies are also investigating the shooting of Pretti — and the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal agent in Minneapolis earlier in January.
