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# "A momentous pivotal moment for the United States."
- URL: https://unprecedented.ghost.io/archive/a-momentous-pivotal-moment-for-the-united-states/
- Published: 2026-01-24T23:28:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-01-24T23:28:26.000Z
- Description: Alex Pretti, 37, was a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.
- Author: Richard Hine
- Tags: killed by trump, trump 2.0, trump administration, alex pretti

Reports *The Guardian*:

> The Minnesota man who was [killed by federal agents](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/24/minneapolis-shooting-federal-agents?ref=unprecedented.ghost.io) on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti, 37, a registered nurse working in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System, which serves veterans.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/68/2e/682e9b3f-92a8-4b35-9f3b-3e61f1face3d/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-5.57.52---PM.png)

> It’s the second fatal shooting this month in [Minneapolis](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/minneapolis?ref=unprecedented.ghost.io), Minnesota, in addition to another non-fatal shooting, amid a major crackdown in Minnesota by federal agents.

Videos posted on social media contradicted the Trump Administration's "150-word account of the shooting that DHS published on social media on Saturday afternoon," reports *Mother Jones*. That false statement claimed that "an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.''

According to [*Mother Jones*](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/video-contradicts-minneapolis-shooting-dhs-trump-alex-pretti/?ref=unprecedented.ghost.io):

> The [graphic video](https://x.com/ryangrim/status/2015132217878384791?ref=unprecedented.ghost.io), which was uploaded by *Drop Site News*, shows Pretti appearing to direct traffic and film federal agents on his phone. Soon after, he appears to be pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by multiple agents. About a half-dozen agents are on top of Pretti or in his immediate vicinity when he is initially shot. The gunshots continue after Pretti is on the ground. 

In a televised statement to the press, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem described a scene that did not happen. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/68/2e/682e9b3f-92a8-4b35-9f3b-3e61f1face3d/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-6.00.25---PM-1.png)

While social media users describing the shooting as an "assassination," Noem said it was the fault of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who were not present.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/68/2e/682e9b3f-92a8-4b35-9f3b-3e61f1face3d/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-6.01.07---PM.png)

At the same time, Noem insisted that the officers who shot the unarmed Pretti, a 37-year-old US citizen, simply "responded according to their training."

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/68/2e/682e9b3f-92a8-4b35-9f3b-3e61f1face3d/content/images/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-6.03.20---PM.png)

In the aftermath of the shooting, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [appeared on CNN](https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3md7azz55df2z?ref=unprecedented.ghost.io), telling Jake Tapper, in part:

> An ICE officer had pushed, violently, a woman to the ground and (Pretti) had come over to help get her up and that is what precipitated this incident that very quickly led to an execution, a deadly shooting, in the street. **What we are seeing here is a momentous pivotal moment for the United States and I cannot underscore enough how precipitous this moment is.** 

> ICE and CBP... we will see which agencies were responsible, but at the end of the day under this so-called excuse of border security, where Minneapolis is over 300 miles from the United States border, we have an unleashing of federal agents and violence exerting a tremendous amount of violence and lost life against the American people who are well within their First Amendment rights.

Whatever mandate the Trump Administration may claim for its immigration enforcement actions, it was never a mandate for what we are seeing: warrantless raids that defy the Constitution, wrongful arrests, family separations, public humiliations — and the growing use of deadly force, with U.S. citizens in the crosshairs.

As AOC said, the killing of Alex Pretti, in the same city and the same month as the fatal shooting of [Renee Good](https://unprecedented.ghost.io/archive/in-cold-blood/), has brought us to "a momentous pivotal moment for the United States."

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