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A former prosecutor said Alex Pretti was not charged after being seen on camera spitting at federal agents and damaging a government SUV days before he was killed because of the “environment” surrounding immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.
The video, released by The News Movement, was reportedly recorded on Jan. 13 and shows Pretti spitting at federal agents and kicking the taillight of a federal SUV, which broke. Just 11 days later, on Jan. 24, Pretti was killed by a Border Patrol agent.
Pretti can be heard yelling “f— you” repeatedly and flashed his middle fingers before federal agents exited the SUV and tackled him to the ground.
Steve Schleicher, attorney for the Pretti family, confirmed to Fox News he was involved in the incident a week prior to being shot.
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“A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents. Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on Jan 24,” Schleicher said.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, while he was recording federal officers on a street in Minneapolis. Federal officials initially said Pretti approached immigration agents with a 9 mm handgun and resisted when they tried to disarm him, but eyewitness accounts and bystander video raise questions about the government’s version of events.
At the time, Border Patrol agents were conducting enforcement operations in the area when civilians blew whistles and shouted, forcing authorities to tell the crowd to stay on the sidewalk in order to steer clear of law enforcement activity.
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Fred Tecce, a former federal prosecutor, told Fox News Digital that while Pretti should have been arrested, circumstances in Minneapolis changed that.
“If you were in your town one day, and you decide to walk down the alley, and you see a police car, and you decided to kick out the taillight and spit on the police officers, what do you think would happen to you, right? You’d be arrested,” Tecce said. “The circumstances surrounding what’s going on in Minneapolis call all bets off. I mean all the rules have gone out the window.”
Tecce said the chaotic protest environment could have also contributed to Pretti not being arrested.
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“You know when you’re an ICE officer, and you’ve got angry mobs around you attacking you, doing all these things, you don’t really have the option of doing what you may would have otherwise have done.”
Pretti’s shooting marked the second fatal incident in Minneapolis in recent weeks involving federal immigration agents amid heightened tensions over enforcement operations and clashes with anti-ICE demonstrators.
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Following Pretti’s death, President Donald Trump confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that his administration is “reviewing everything” regarding the shooting.
“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” Trump said.
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