Featured Image Credit: CBS Minnesota
Topics: US News
Niamh Shackleton
Witnesses who saw the moment that agents fatally shot ICE protestor Alex Pretti have weighed in on whether the 37-year-old was brandishing a gun or not in the moments leading up to his death.
On Saturday (January 24), Pretti, who was an intensive care nurse at Minneapolis VA Health Care System, was killed by federal agents after intervening during a protest.
Footage is believed to show Pretti coming to the aid of a woman whom officers pushed over before he was violently pepper-sprayed.
He was then tackled to the ground by multiple agents, and a few moments later, several shots rang out, killing him. Pretti’s death comes after the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent on January 7.
Advert
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has since alleged that the officers fired in defense as Pretti had a gun.
The 37-year-old was 'a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry', said Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara.
It's thought that Pretti may have had his gun on him at the time of the ordeal, but he was not pointing it at law enforcement – something which witnesses have now backed up.
Two witnesses said they did not see Pretti brandish a weapon in a sworn testimony, The Guardian reports. Their names were redacted in the publicly available filings.
One of the witnesses' harrowing statements read: "The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn’t see him touch any of them – he wasn’t even turned toward them. It didn’t look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up.
"I didn’t see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times... I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him."
"The man did not approach the agents with a gun," she went on to say.
The second witness, a physician, echoed similar sentiments and stated that they 'did not see [Pretti] attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind'.
The physician also said that they tried to get to Pretti to render medical aid after he'd been shot, but initially, they wouldn't let her through.
When she was eventually allowed through, she claimed that officers were not checking for Pretti's pulse but 'appeared to be counting his bullet wounds' instead.
When she checked him for a pulse, she sadly found none.
If you or someone you know has been affected by gun violence, please find more information and support via Survivors Empowered on their website.