US President Donald Trump downplayed the shooting death of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Friday, calling him an “agitator” and a suspected “insurrectionist” after a video surfaced showing Pretti kicking an ICE vehicle before being subdued by federal agents.
“The stock price of agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist Alex Pretti has dropped significantly following the recently released video of him yelling and spitting in the face of a very calm and controlled ICE officer, and then madly kicking a brand new, very expensive government vehicle with such force and violence that the taillight was smashed to pieces,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The video in question was recorded on January 13 and published Wednesday by the digital news outlet The News Movement, while its authenticity was confirmed by the BBC. Later, CBS also verified that the footage was recorded in Minneapolis, but there is still no definitive account of the incident.
The nurse’s family lawyer, Steve Schleicher, argued that a week before “Alex was shot and killed in the street, he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents” and that “nothing that happened a week earlier can serve as an excuse to justify his murder.”
The Trump Administration Accused Renee Good of Domestic Terrorism
It’s worth recalling that the Donald Trump administration initially accused writer Renee Good, another ICE victim shot and killed in Minneapolis, of “domestic terrorism,” according to statements made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a visit to Texas on January 7, 2025.
For his part, the US President defended ICE’s actions in the context of a series of protests that erupted over his administration’s anti-immigrant operations in the state. However, on January 21, he acknowledged feeling “horrible” about the writer’s death, admitting that ICE agents can make mistakes and calling the incident a “tragedy.”
