THE US GOVERNMENT’S accounts of what led immigration agents to kill two people in Minnesota this month have come up against the reality shown in footage of the shootings. 

Senior officials of the federal government, including President Donald Trump, rushed to push out their own versions of events before formal investigations had even been launched into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Those accounts, which have broadly argued that both Good and Pretti were “domestic terrorists” intent on harming immigration agents, have been directly contradicted by footage shared by onlookers, and through investigations by multiple US media outlets. 

Both fatal shootings have catalysed growing anger towards immigration agencies and the Trump administration more broadly, with footage of the incidents going viral. 

Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on 7 January when she was behind the wheel of her car and attempted to drive away from the scene.

Federal agencies and senior White House officials said she tried to run the officer over, which justified the shooting, but footage of the incident analysed by media outlets in the US showed that was not the case. 

With the killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday, a similar campaign of disinformation and spin has come from the Trump administration, with officials claiming he “brandished” a gun before being killed by agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Again, footage of the killing has constricted the government’s narrative.

Demonstrators protesting outside the White House in Washington after the killing of Renee Good Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The footage

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot dead by an immigration agent in Minneapolis on Saturday as he was tackled to the ground by a group of officers. 

He had been attempting to put himself in the way of a Department of Homeland Security agent who had just pushed a woman to the ground.

Videos taken from multiple angles and analysed by The New York Times, CNN, NBC News and others show Pretti filming with his phone in one hand while raising his other hand as the agent then pepper sprays him.

Alex Pretti with his phone in his right hand while raising his left hand to block pepper spray The Journal The Journal

Pretti is then tackled to the ground and pinned on the pavement by seven agents, one of whom strikes him repeatedly with what looks like a pepper spray canister.  

An eighth agent arrives, removes a holstered gun from Pretti’s waist and takes it away from the scene. At the same time, one of the agents pinning Pretti to the ground stands up, unholsters his own sidearm and points it at him. 

The agent then shoots at Pretti while he is restrained on the ground. He then fires three more shots at him. 

An agent removing Alex Pretti's gun from the scene NBC News analysis NBC News analysis

Another agent fires at the prone Petti. The two agents appear to have fired ten shots in total in the space of five seconds. 

‘Brandishing’ a gun

Federal officials have pointed to Pretti’s possession of a gun as the main reason that explains the agents’ decision to shoot him, even though Minnesota law allows people with a permit to carry handguns and local police have confirmed that he had such a permit. 

“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Saturday.

Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by DHS agents in Minnesota on Saturday Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

In the footage taken of the confrontation that left him dead, Pretti never removes his gun from the holster.  

Related Reads

'This has to stop': Obama and Clinton urge Americans to 'speak out' after Minneapolis shootings

Protests grow in Minneapolis as man shot dead by federal agents is named as Alex Pretti

ICE accused of using five-year-old child as ‘bait’ in Minneapolis immigration raids

Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino told CNN on Sunday that Pretti was not blameless, and that observers should not take part in “freeze-frame adjudication of a crime scene.”

“Border Patrol agents and law enforcement were conducting a targeted law enforcement effort against a violent illegal alien that was nearby, and that suspect injected himself into that law enforcement situation with a weapon,” Bovino said.

“I don’t know he was unarmed. That’s freeze-frame adjudication of a crime scene via a photo. That’s why we have investigators.”

Noem: This individual committed domestic terrorism. That is the facts. pic.twitter.com/tMXmuyVFhU

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 24, 2026

FBI Chief Kash Patel rejected the idea that Pretti was a peaceful protester.

“No one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm that is loaded with two full magazines,” Patel told Fox News.

“You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.”

As was the case following the killing of Renee Good, local police in Minneapolis have said the DHS and ICE have impeded their attempts to investigate and canvass witnesses.

In a sign of the distrust with which the federal authorities are now viewed, a judge in Minnesota granted a temporary restraining order against DHS, barring the department from altering or destroying evidence following the fatal shooting on Saturday.

President Trump has since said his administration was reviewing the shooting of Pretti. 

“We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination,” he told the Wall Street Journal.