Trump administration officials had originally said the investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, was going to be a narrow use-of-force inquiry led by the Homeland Security Department.
The Justice Department said on Friday that it will conduct a civil rights investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse whose killing by federal agents in Minneapolis resulted in a national backlash against President Trumpās aggressive immigration crackdown.
The announcement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
marked a major turnaround in the Trump administrationās approach to the case, which officials had initially said would be confined to a relatively narrow use-of-force inquiry by the Department of Homeland Security.
ā
We are looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day,ā Mr. Blanche said at a news conference. ā
I donāt want the takeaway to be there is some massive civil rights investigation. I would describe it as a standard investigation by the F.B.I. That investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers from the civil rights division, it will.ā
Somewhere along the way, ICE Agents thought it would alright to shoot a disarmed man when he was on the ground. I hope the family sues for wrongful death.
<~~~~~~~~~~>
Alex Pretti was no protester!
Hereās who bears blame for his death
If Alex Pretti was an āobserver,ā in the euphemism preferred by anti-ICE politicians and activists, he was observing how much unhinged behavior he could get away with.
nypost.com
30 Jan 2026 ~~ By Rich Lowry
Alex Pretti wasnāt killed while āprotesting.ā
This is a common description of what he was doing on a Minneapolis street Saturday, when a confrontation with federal immigration agents
ended in his tragic shooting.
If Pretti had been a mere protester, heād very likely be alive today.
Now that weāve seen videos of an earlier
struggle with federal agents and learned more about the organized nature of the anti-ICE resistance, itās become clear that the better word for Pretti was agitator, or perhaps even operative.
A protester, as typically understood, is someone who is making a point, often as part of a gathering of other like-minded people and, usually but not always, in opposition to something.
~Snip~
What weāve seen in Minneapolis, though, is often quite different.
Run-of-the-mill protesters donāt
seek out federal agents and harass and obstruct them.
They donāt follow and block their vehicles.
And they donāt
establish a robust communications network to deploy resources and
create maximum disruption of law enforcement operations.
Pretti was part of this effort, which is more a form of low-level and (by and large) nonviolent insurgency than conventional protest.
In his first confrontation with federal agents, 11 days before his death, Pretti was
every bit an anti-ICE street brawler.
~Snip~
If Pretti was an āobserver,ā in the euphemism preferred by anti-ICE politicians and activists, he was observing how much unhinged behavior he could get away with.
Thereās no doubt that at this event, he was the violent instigator.
After Pretti damaged the vehicle, agents got out and pushed him to the ground.
For all the talk of ICE being the equivalent of the Gestapo, they didnāt even bother to arrest him, despite his having committed a crime.
~Snip~
Why simply express a point of view when you can act to stop arrests and to create a hostile, threatening environment for agents?
This doesnāt mean that Pretti got what he deserved, or that the officers acted appropriately.
It does mean that state and city officials should have been telling people not to āmonitorā DHS activity, but to stay well clear of legitimate law enforcement activities.
Reasonable people can disagree about the desirability of the goal that Pretti was pursuing.
But thereās no doubt about how he was going about it, and that it didnāt involve conventional protest.
Commentary:
Was Alex Pretti in truth an activist provocateur? NOT a protestor.
From all that is being said and written, Pretti appears to be an Leftist Antifa Activist. This wasn't his first rodeo.
Pretti was on the Signal Chat group, coordinating actions to interfere with ICE?
His Second Amendment rights didn't absolve him of his personal responsibility. Bringing a loaded gun to a hostile situation and harassing cops was a recipe for disaster.
We are finding that these rioters are being paid good money for this behavior. People like Singham, Soros and China are behind the whole thing. There has to be a reckoning for these people and organizations.
Does anyone remember acting like this when we saw 10k people a day streaming across the border by Biden and Mayorkas?. None of this would be necessary if Biden had any clue what was happening. Yet, all Iāve seen for years is Democrats advocating for strong borders. Why the switch? Hmmm, power??
WE all have to realize that Pretti's actions forced those cops to make a split second decision. You can argue in hindsight whether their decision was the right one but those cops weren't able to examine a video frame by frame like you can. They feared for their lives and had to act in the moment, and that's all on Pretti.
