Alex Pretti: The Shooting, Homicide Ruling, and Federal Probe

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, was shot and killed by two federal immigration agents on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis on January 24, 2026. The Alex Pretti shooting was ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner nine days later, triggered a Department of Justice civil rights investigation, produced two lawsuits by Minnesota officials against the federal government, and drew bipartisan calls in Congress for accountability. As of mid-2026, no criminal charges have been filed against either agent.¹

What Happened on Nicollet Avenue

Pretti was killed during “Operation Metro Surge,” a large-scale immigration enforcement campaign launched by the Department of Homeland Security in December 2025 that deployed thousands of armed ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents across Minneapolis and St. Paul.² On January 24, federal agents on a roving patrol had been trying to apprehend someone who fled into a donut shop that locked its doors, leaving the agents on the street with bystanders and protesters.³

At least nine bystander videos, obtained and analyzed by CNN, captured what happened next.⁴ The footage shows Pretti directing traffic and recording agents on his phone. When a federal agent in a tan beanie began shoving bystanders, Pretti intervened and told the agent not to push people into traffic. The agent shoved Pretti, then pepper-sprayed him in the face and struck him in the head repeatedly with the canister when Pretti stepped between the agent and a female observer.³ Multiple agents then pulled him to the ground.

Bystander video shows a federal agent reaching into the group of officers restraining Pretti and removing a handgun from his waistband. The agent can be heard saying “I got the gun, I got the gun” while emerging from the scrum holding the firearm.⁴ Roughly one second after the weapon was retrieved, ten shots were fired in under five seconds, according to forensic audio analysis by Montana State University professor Robert Maher.⁵ CNN’s analysis found that an agent in a black beanie fired four shots while Pretti was on his knees, followed by additional shots from the agent in the tan beanie and a second volley from the first agent.³

A sworn affidavit from a doctor who treated Pretti at the scene reported at least three bullet wounds in his back, one in his upper chest, and a possible wound on his neck.⁵ The videos did not appear to show federal agents providing medical assistance for more than a minute after the shooting. Officers were instead seen searching Pretti’s body about 30 seconds after he was shot.⁴ He was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.

The Government’s Account and What the Videos Show

The federal government’s version of the shooting diverged sharply from the video evidence. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told a press conference that Pretti “arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement” and claimed he “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun.”⁵ Federal authorities labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist.”⁶ Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino asserted that Pretti “intended to massacre law enforcement.”⁷

Independent video analyses reached different conclusions. ABC News verified six videos showing Pretti recording officers with his phone before being pushed and pepper-sprayed.⁵ CNN’s review of nine videos found no evidence that Pretti acted violently or held a handgun before an officer removed it from his waistband.⁴ Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a valid Minnesota carry permit and had no prior criminal record beyond traffic and parking infractions, Minneapolis police confirmed.⁸ His family said they had never known him to carry the weapon.⁹

A preliminary DHS report acknowledged that video evidence showed Pretti was not brandishing his weapon when detained, Politico reported.¹⁰ At a February 12 Senate hearing, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said that neither he nor anyone under his command had provided information to support Noem’s “domestic terrorist” characterization.¹¹ ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons also testified that he did not consider Pretti a domestic terrorist.¹² Pressed on March 3 by Senator Dick Durbin on why she had called Pretti a terrorist without evidence, Noem declined to retract the characterization, saying it was “based on information relayed to her in the hours after the incident.”¹³

The Homicide Ruling

On February 2, 2026, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker classified Pretti’s death as a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.¹⁴ The office noted that the classification indicates death at the hands of another person and does not itself imply criminal intent. The report did not specify the exact number of gunshot wounds, though independent video analyses consistently estimated approximately ten shots were fired.¹⁵

The Agents Who Fired

ProPublica identified the two agents as Border Patrol Agent Jesus Ochoa, 43, and CBP Officer Raymundo Gutierrez, 35. CBP did not publicly release the agents’ names, and DHS reportedly withheld their identities from Congress and state law enforcement.¹⁶ Both were placed on administrative leave.¹

Bovino, who had been the public face of Operation Metro Surge, was removed from his field role less than 48 hours after referring to the agents who killed Pretti as “victims.” He was sent back to his previous post as Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro, California, and oversight of the Minneapolis operation was transferred to White House border czar Tom Homan.¹⁷ Bovino announced his retirement on March 16, 2026.⁷

The Federal Investigation

On January 30, 2026, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and the FBI had opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting. Blanche described it as a “standard investigation” covering the day of the shooting and the weeks leading up to it, saying the department was “talking to witnesses” and “looking at documentary evidence.”¹⁸ The probe elevated the matter beyond an internal DHS compliance review and opened the possibility of grand jury subpoenas.

CBS News reported in March 2026 that career prosecutors who specialize in excessive-force cases had been excluded from the investigation, a departure from historical DOJ practice. The team instead included a lawyer from the Civil Rights Division’s employment litigation section and two local prosecutors from the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s office. A senior DOJ official declined to characterize the probe as a “deprivation of rights under color of law” investigation, saying the department was still “looking under the hood.”¹⁹ As of mid-2026, no public findings or charges have resulted.

Minnesota’s Parallel Effort

State and county officials moved on the day of the shooting to conduct their own investigation and secure evidence. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, represented by Attorney General Keith Ellison, filed a lawsuit and emergency motion in U.S. District Court seeking to prevent the destruction of evidence.²⁰ U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order enjoining federal officials from “destroying or altering evidence related to the fatal shooting.” The order was dissolved on February 2 after the court found the “greater weight of the evidence” suggested federal authorities were unlikely to destroy evidence, and the state voluntarily dismissed that case in March.²¹

State officials alleged that federal authorities physically blocked state investigators from the scene, refused to share evidence, and cut off a brief period of cooperation. Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and BCA Superintendent Drew Evans filed a second lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that DOJ and DHS had blocked state access to evidence in the Pretti shooting and two related cases, arguing the refusal violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Tenth Amendment.²² Moriarty said her office has “jurisdiction to review this matter for potential criminal conduct by the federal agents involved” and opened an online portal that collected more than 1,000 tips from the public.²³ State authorities have not ruled out filing charges against the agents.²⁴

Why Charging Federal Agents Is Hard

Under DHS policy, officers may use only force that is “objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances,” a standard drawn from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Graham v. Connor. The policy also instructs officers to use de-escalatory tactics and imposes a duty to intervene when witnessing excessive force by another officer.²⁵

The main federal civil rights statute available in such cases, 18 U.S.C. § 242, requires proof that the agents “willfully” deprived Pretti of his constitutional rights. State prosecutors face an added barrier: under the Supremacy Clause, federal officers can argue they acted within the scope of their duties and may move any state criminal case to federal court. On the civil side, the traditional lawsuit vehicle against state officers, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, does not apply to federal agents, and the alternative, a Bivens action, has been interpreted so narrowly by the Supreme Court that legal experts say it offers little practical recourse.²⁶ Craig Green, a law professor at Temple University, expressed skepticism that the current DOJ would bring charges against federal officers serving the administration’s immigration agenda. Ilya Somin of George Mason University noted that while qualified immunity is very difficult to overcome, courts have occasionally set it aside in “particularly egregious” cases.²⁵

Congressional Fallout

The killing produced a rare moment of bipartisan anger on Capitol Hill. More than a half-dozen Republican senators called for an independent investigation, including Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis. Several Republicans framed the killing as a Second Amendment issue. Murkowski said, “Lawfully carrying a firearm does not justify federal agents killing an American.”²⁷ Representative Thomas Massie said, “Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right.”²⁸

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul convened an oversight hearing on February 12, 2026, at which he forced ICE Acting Director Lyons, CBP Commissioner Scott, and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow to review frame-by-frame video of the incident, calling the agents’ actions “terrible police work.”¹¹ Scott and Lyons both agreed on the record that physically throwing a person to the ground is not an appropriate de-escalation tactic when the only prior interaction was verbal. Scott committed to releasing body camera footage once the investigation is complete but declined to discuss specifics of the case.¹²

At a March 3 Senate Judiciary Committee appearance, Senator Tillis delivered a roughly ten-minute critique, calling DHS under Noem a “disaster” and a “failure,” and declined to let her respond, telling her, “I’m giving you a performance evaluation here.”¹³ Representatives Delia Ramirez and Seth Magaziner introduced the “DHS Use of Force Oversight Act,” which would mandate a department-wide use-of-force policy, prohibit chokeholds, require congressional notification within 24 hours when a DHS agent kills or hospitalizes someone, and establish semiannual public reporting on use-of-force incidents.²⁹

Who Alex Pretti Was

Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he attended Preble High School and played football, baseball, and track. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir.³⁰ He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2011 with a degree in biology, society, and the environment, worked as a research scientist, and then put himself through nursing school at the same university.⁸ He obtained his nursing license in January 2021 and had worked about five years as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, where he also assisted with research on colon cancer prevention in veterans.⁹

Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, the VA’s chief of infectious diseases, described Pretti as “a good, kind person who lived to help” and “a helpful, smiling joking guy.” He lived alone in Minneapolis with his dog, Joule, was an avid mountain biker and outdoorsman, and had no criminal record.³⁰ He had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Nicole Good, another U.S. citizen shot by an ICE agent during Operation Metro Surge earlier that month.⁹ His parents, Michael and Susan Pretti, called him a “kindhearted soul” who “cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans” he served.⁸ Steve Schleicher, the family’s attorney, said, “The family’s focus is on a fair and impartial investigation that examines the facts around his murder.”²⁴

1
MPR News. Alex Pretti Shooting
2
Britannica. 2025-26 Minnesota ICE Deployment
3
CNN. Immigration Agents Shooting of Alex Pretti
4
CNN. Alex Pretti Shooting Minneapolis Videos and Witnesses
5
ABC News. Minute-by-Minute Timeline of the Fatal Shooting of Alex Pretti
6
NPR. Alex Pretti Renee Good ICE Shootings Federal Investigations
7
Newsweek. Greg Bovino Explains What Went Wrong With ICE Border Patrol in Minnesota
8
CNN. Alex Pretti Minneapolis ICE Shooting
9
Military.com. Who Is Alex Pretti, the VA Nurse Shot by Border Patrol During Minnesota Protest
10
Politico. DOJ Investigation Pretti Shooting Minnesota
11
NPR. Senate DHS Oversight Hearing
12
ABC News. Trust Lost: ICE CBP Officials Questioned on Enforcement Tactics
13
ABC News. Noem Faces Grilling on Capitol Hill Over ICE
14
MPR News. Medical Examiner Report on Alex Pretti
15
Star Tribune. Hennepin County Medical Examiner Classifies Alex Pretti’s Death as Homicide
16
ProPublica. Alex Pretti Shooting CBP Agents Identified
17
The Wall Street Journal. Bovino ICE Border Patrol Minneapolis
18
JURIST. DOJ Opens Civil Rights Probe Into Killing of Alex Pretti by Federal Agents
19
CBS News. DOJ Civil Rights Division Career Prosecutors Alex Pretti
20
Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. HCAO BCA MNAGO Filing
21
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension v. Noem
22
CBS News. Minnesota State and County Sue Government Over Renee Good and Alex Pretti Investigations
23
ABC 7. Minnesota Sues Trump Administration Over Federal Shootings
24
NPR. Alex Pretti Shooting DOJ Civil Rights Investigation
25
Time. Federal Officers Shooting Immigration Prosecution Immunity
26
Stanford Law School. Can ICE Agents Be Prosecuted
27
NBC News. Rand Paul Calls ICE CBP USCIS to Testify Before Senate Homeland Security Committee
28
NPR. Senate Investigation Alex Pretti Killing
29
The Intercept. CBP Congress DHS Death Report Alex Pretti
30
BBC. Alex Pretti Profile