The New York Times spun a false narrative on the actions of Alex Pretti leading up to his shooting death by Customs and Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis Saturday during an attempt to arrest an illegal alien.
The Times report falsely paints Pretti as an innocent observer when instead he actively interfered with and made physical contact with a CBP officer while the officer was pushing two aggressive anti-ICE activists out of the street. The narrative skips over or ignores Pretti’s actions to interfere with the CBP officer and his aggressive physical contact with the officer.
According to reports and officials, Pretti, who had been issued a concealed carry permit, was armed with a concealed handgun and two magazines however he did not have the permit or ID on him as required by state law.
New York Times excerpt:
48 seconds before shooting
Videos show a small group of civilians standing in the middle of a street where a person was detained on the ground; the civilians are speaking to federal agents. Mr. Pretti appears to be filming the scene, and he walks closer to the federal agents while holding his phone.
Then an agent shoves two civilians from one side of the street to the other, pushing them toward a white S.U.V.
For a second time, the agent pushes the civilian with the orange backpack. The civilian falls to the ground near the white S.U.V.
28 seconds before
Mr. Pretti tries to put himself between the D.H.S. agent and the two civilians. Footage shows the same agent squirting pepper spray in the direction of Mr. Pretti’s face. (This agent will later fire shots at Mr. Pretti.)
Mr. Pretti is holding his phone in one hand, and he holds his other hand up to shield himself from the spray.
Minutes earlier, but unreported in the Times narrative, Pretti had been pushed out of the street by a CBP officer:
Is he was shooting video, what does this video show? pic.twitter.com/jRkz52sSsM
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) January 24, 2026
The video posted by Drop Site News (embedding blocked, click link to view) shows the two female anti-ICE activists, wearing a brown coat and white coat, respectively, who would end up being pushed out of the street by a CBP officer, acting as a team approaching CBP officers while Pretti hangs back acting as back-up. All three have their cellphones out for video recording.
Pretti steps out to the middle of the road and directs a car to proceed past the scene of the CBP action.
The CBP officer moves the two women across the street. The woman in the brown coat, in the video below, is seen returning to the woman in the white coat and the officer, and then gets shoved again by the CBP officer toward where Pretti had moved by the parked white car.
Pretti approaches the woman in the brown coat and puts his body between her and the CBP officer. In an act of familiarity the two put their arms around each other’s backs. The woman in the white coat hustles over and approaches the CBP officer and gets shoved again by the officer. Pretti moves in and tries to put himself between the woman and the officer. Pretti makes physical contact with the officer and gets pepper-sprayed by the officer. He then turns to help the woman in the white coat back on her feet as more officers approach and try to detain him and chaos ensues.
BREAKING: Full video of the altercation from a better angle right up until the suspect is shot. You can see the suspect jump on the back of what may be another protestor before being pulled off. Crazy footage. pic.twitter.com/rsxLOXFSUO
— Kim “Katie” USA (@KimKatieUSA) January 24, 2026
The Times effort to set a false narrative paid off with a dramatic reading by Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe on MSNOW Monday (click link to view, embedding blocked.)
What happened afterward when CBP officers tried to detain Pretti and a scrum ensued leading to Pretti being shot and killed is open to interpretation. It appears Pretti, knowing he had a concealed gun on him, resisted being detained. An officer apparently saw and removed Pretti’s gun from his rear waistband. Speculation is the gun accidentally discharged after being removed, setting off a reaction by other officers to draw their weapons and shoot Pretti several times, killing him.
Whether that is a justified shooting will be determined by federal investigators.
Pretti did all he did Saturday knowing he had a concealed handgun and backup ammo on his person. Normal concealed carry permit owners are usually the most non-violent and law-abiding citizens because they value their hard-earned permit and don’t want to have it revoked.
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