Border Patrol agents shoot and kill U.S. citizen VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis

On Saturday, January 24, 2026, two federal agents fatally shot Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and intensive-care nurse for the Department of Veterans Affairs, on a street in south Minneapolis during the Trump administration's "Metro Surge" immigration operation. Immigration officials said the agents had been conducting a targeted operation against a different man when the encounter with Pretti escalated. Bystander videos verified by national news outlets showed agents pepper-spraying Pretti and several officers pinning and striking him on the ground before multiple shots were fired. Pretti, who lived in the Lyndale neighborhood, had no criminal record and was a lawful gun owner with a permit, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara.

The Department of Homeland Security defended the shooting. Secretary Kristi Noem said the agents "acted according to their training" and accused Pretti of brandishing a weapon and attacking officers, and Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, who was directing the Minneapolis surge, called the shooter "highly trained." But no video has surfaced showing Pretti brandishing or firing the handgun officials said he carried, and a preliminary DHS report to Congress did not confirm the brandishing claim. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called the killing "sickening" and demanded the operation end; Mayor Jacob Frey sought a restraining order against the federal crackdown. The Hennepin County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide from multiple gunshot wounds, the two agents were placed on administrative leave, and the Justice Department announced a civil rights investigation. ProPublica later identified the agents as Border Patrol agent Jesus "Jesse" Ochoa, 43, and CBP officer Raymundo Gutierrez, 35, both from Texas, after the administration declined to name them.

The killing was the second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in under three weeks, following the January 7 ICE killing of Renee Good, and part of a broader pattern of force during the surge. The Standing records this entry because the lethal use of state force against an unarmed U.S. citizen — carried out with military-style tactics during a domestic immigration operation, then defended with an account contradicted by video evidence — implicates the accountability that is supposed to constrain how the government uses violence against the people it governs.