The death of an American, the second killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January, unleashed national outrage and new protests in this city shaken for several weeks by demonstrations against the anti-immigration offensive ordered by Donald Trump’s government.
Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nursedied on Saturday after an altercation with federal agents. His death aggravates an already tense atmosphere since the death of Renee Good, also a 37-year-old American, killed on January 7 in her car by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).
The Trump administration quickly claimed, as it did after Good’s death, that Pretti intended to hurt federal agents, even though a video of the incident appeared to contradict his account.
“He was there to perpetuate violence,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a press conference on Saturday, while White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said: He referred to Pretti as a “murderer”in a publication replicated in X by Vice President JD Vance.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Pretti was armed with a gun and had “violently resisted” before an agent, “fearing for his life,” fired.
In X, DHS posted a photo of the gun allegedly used.
But according to an analysis of the images carried out by the investigative media Bellingcat, “a few moments before the first shot was fired”, one of the agents is seen walking away with a pistol similar to the weapon shown by the DHS.
Then, “two different officers clearly fire their weapons and at least ten shots in total are fired,” Bellingcat continues, “mostly” when “the man was already lying on the ground without moving.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara indicated that Pretti resided in the city, had a weapons permit and had no serious criminal record.
Dimitri Drekonja, chief of the Infectious Diseases Section at the Minneapolis VA hospital and a colleague of Pretti, described him as “a good person, kind, who lived to help.”
“I wanted to change the world”
Several hundred protesters gathered in a Minneapolis park on Saturday night, in the freezing cold. There were also protest rallies or tributes to Pretti in several cities, from New York to Los Angeles.
In a statement, Pretti’s parents accused the Trump administration of spreading “disgusting lies” about their son, whom they described as “a kind soul” who “wanted to change the world.”
“He was clearly unarmed when he was attacked by the cowardly and murderous ICE agents sent by Trump,” they said.
Democratic politicians They threatened to block federal government fundingwhich runs the risk of new paralysis at the end of the month.
The governor of Minnesota, Democrat Tim Walz, demanded that the investigation be supervised by local authorities, and not federal ones. “You can’t trust the federal government,” he said, before accusing ICE of sowing “chaos and violence.”
One Republican, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, called for a joint local and federal investigation. “The credibility of ICE and DHS is at stake,” he wrote in X.
“Insurrection”
“The mayor and governor are inciting insurrection with their pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric,” Trump accused on his Truth Social platform, and called for letting the immigration police “do their job.”
The mayor of Minneapolis, Democrat Jacob Freyurged the president to end ICE operations in his city and reestablish “peace.”
The city has been in tension since Good’s death, which has become a symbol of the excesses of which ICE is regularly accused.
Maria, a 56-year-old local resident interviewed by AFP in a Minneapolis park and who did not want to give her last name, said she had gone to “support people who are demonstrating peacefully” and bring them hand warmers, as the temperature dropped below -20°C.
The situation is in full “escalation”, ICE agents “attack and terrorize” neighborshe stated.
“What is happening in our country is simply obscene,” American actress Natalie Portman told AFP at the Sundance film festival in Utah.
Public outrage in Minnesota was reignited this week with the case of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, an Ecuadorian national, arrested on Tuesday as they arrived home.
