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The day After Border Patrol officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, his federal employer knew who to blame: Minnesota’s local government.
“As President Trump has said, nobody wants to see chaos and death in American cities,” wrote Doug Collins, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, on X Sunday. “Such tragedies are unfortunately happening in Minnesota because of state and local officials’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government to enforce the law and deport dangerous illegal criminals.”
A Border Patrol agent with eight years of experience shot Pretti on Saturday, commander-at-large Gregory Bovino said over the weekend. According to a New York Times analysis, multiple agents wrestled Pretti to the ground, and two agents shot him at least 10 times in total. Department of Homeland Security officials claim the shooting was a defensive response after Pretti approached agents with a firearm, but videos from the scene suggest that agents had removed Pretti’s gun from his hip before killing him.
Sworn eyewitness declarations from the scene also contradict DHS’s narrative. Two witnesses swear that Pretti, a U.S. citizen, was filming agents with a cellphone when he was forced to the ground and shot multiple times. One declaration was submitted by a licensed pediatrician who said they attempted to render medical aid after agents initially blocked access to the victim.
When The Intercept reached out to the VA for a statement about Pretti’s killing, press secretary Peter Kasperowicz directed inquiries to Collins’s post, which offered condolences to Pretti’s family before shifting blame to Minnesota officials. The secretary’s post did not acknowledge that federal agents fired the shots.
The Intercept also asked whether the VA was providing counseling or support services to Pretti’s co-workers or family, and whether the department had initiated any internal review following the violent death of a federal employee.
Kasperowicz did not answer those questions, nor did he respond to follow-up questions asking whether the VA had contacted Pretti’s family, notified staff at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, or taken steps to provide employee assistance services.
Pretti’s death has prompted public expressions of grief from co-workers. In a social media post, Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, who identifies himself as a physician at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, wrote that he had known Pretti since nursing school, before Pretti became an ICU nurse caring for critically ill veterans.
“We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together,” Drekonja wrote. “Will never happen now.”
The shooting has prompted multiple investigations and legal actions. Minnesota officials have accused federal agents of restricting access to the scene, detaining witnesses, and seizing cellphones before leaving the area.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.
Walz, who earlier this month announced he would not seek reelection amid a statewide fraud scandal spurred by right-wing influencers, wrote on X Sunday that “Minnesota believes in law and order. We believe in peace. And we believe that Trump needs to pull his 3,000 untrained agents out of Minnesota before they kill another American in the street.”
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office have sought a temporary restraining order to preserve evidence related to the shooting.
The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly addressed the sworn declarations or released body-worn camera footage from the agents involved.
