Harrowing video footage of nurse Alex Pretti being shot dead by a border force agent in Minneapolis was being studied across the world yesterday.
The US Department of Homeland Security claimed the agent ‘fired defensive shots’ after Mr Pretti approached them with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun, branding him a ‘domestic terrorist’.
But witnesses insist he was holding a camera – and footage of the events has cast doubt on the government department’s claims that he posed an immediate threat to the officers.
The DHS has claimed the officers had feared for their lives and had no choice but to fire as Mr Pretti ‘brandished’ a weapon. But new footage which has been slowed and stabilised appears to paint a different picture, in which an officer removes the handgun and walks away with it prior to the nurse being shot.
Mr Pretti was involved in a scuffle with federal immigration agents outside Glam Doll Donuts on 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue. Four masked agents are seen in the video, wrestling him to the floor before two others joined in as he is being punched.
Suddenly several gunshots ring out and the agents are seen springing back to their feet while Mr Pretti lies motionless. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The clip begins after Mr Pretti, a nurse for the intensive care unit at the Veterans Affairs hospital, has already been pepper-sprayed and forced to his knees.
Multiple DHS agents are seen surrounding him, struggling to restrain his arms and legs as he is pushed face-down on to the pavement.
Border Force troops surround the motionless body of Pretti after he was killed in Minneapolis on Saturday
Alex Pretty holds his hand up as he is pepper-sprayed
He is shoved to the ground by border force agents
An officer tried to snatch the gun that Pretti was carrying
He carries off the 37-year-old’s weapon
After more scuffled, an agent points a gun at Pretti’s back
As four agents remain engaged in the struggle, one officer, wearing a grey jacket and a pink rimmed baseball cap, appears to reach into the back waistband of Mr Pretti’s trousers and pull out a handgun. He then moves away from the group, holding the weapon but amid the confusion another is heard asking: ‘Where is the gun?’
Within an instant, another agent draws his firearm and fires directly into Mr Pretti’s back. Agents are then seen backing away as additional shots ring out. Roughly ten shots appear to be fired.
A separate video also contradicts the claims of the DHS. In it Mr Pretti, dressed in a black cap, tan coat and trousers, is seen standing in the middle of the road with his phone in his hand. Minutes later, a woman in a white coat is shoved into the snow before he steps in and is sprayed with pepper-spray.
His attempts to shield the woman see him wrestled to the ground by the officers before more join in and try to restrain him.
‘The f*** is wrong with you?’ a man behind the camera is heard saying before gunshots ring out and onlookers scream.
The DHS said officers rushed to quickly administer first aid, although this is disputed by a doctor who witnessed the aftermath from his nearby apartment.
The unidentified paediatrician claims the agents appeared to be ‘counting his bullet wounds’ instead of administering CPR.
And a woman in a pink coat next to Mr Pretti in the footage provided sworn testimony on Saturday night.
Harrowing video footage of nurse Alex Pretti, pictured, being shot dead by a border force agent in Minneapolis was being studied across the world yesterday
Federal agents stand amid teargas near the site where a man, identified as Mr Pretti was fatally shot by armed police trying to detain him, in Minneapolis, Minnesota
‘I didn’t see him with a gun,’ she said. ‘They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him.’
The officer who shot Mr Pretti is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said. The agent’s identity has not yet been made public.
Mr Pretti’s family have hit out at the US government’s framing of his death and branded his killers ‘murdering and cowardly thugs’.
‘The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,’ they said in a statement.
‘Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly… thugs. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.’
